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The Problem of Asia 



Works by Capt. A. T. Mahan 



THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON 
HISTORY. 1660-1783. 

THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EM- 
PIRE. Two volumes. 

THE LIFE OF NELSON. Two volumes. 

THE INTEREST OF AMERICA IN SEA 
POWER. 

LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH SPAIN AND 
OTHER ARTICLES. 

THE PROBLEM OF ASIA. 



The 

Problem of Asia 

and 

Its EiFect upon International 
Policies 



/ BY 

/ 

A. T. MAHAN, D.C.L., LL.D. 

M 

CTaptam SiniteB States Nabg 

Author of "The Interest of America in Sea Power," "Lessons of the 

War with Spain and Other Articles," "The Influence of Sea 

Power upon History, 1660-1783," "The Influence of Sea 

Power upon the French Revolution and Empire," 

" The Life of Nelson, the Embodiment of the 

Sea Power of Great Britain," etc. 



BOSTON 
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1900 



] 



i' V • .rtr KtCLtveo 

OCT 25 1900 

Cepyrighl entry 

».Cv'XbS:*..V 

StCONO COPY. 

OHiv«rfld tt 

OROtR 0(VISX)N, 

MOV 21 l^UU 



>. 



Copyright, igoo. 
By Harper and Brothers 

(The State Trust Company, Trustee) 



.Vx-i, 



Copyright, igoo, 
By The North American Review Publishing Company 

Copyright, igoo. 
By a. T. Mahan 

All rights reserved 



UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON 
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A, 



% 



PREFACE 

^ I ^HE onward movement of the world is 
-'- largely determined, both in rate and in 
direction, by geographical and physical conditions. 
Add to them racial characteristics, and we probably 
have the chief constituents of the raw material, 
which, under varying impulses from within and 
without, is gradually worked up into history. 

The process of the manufacture is seen in the 
course of events ; but these, whether in cur- 
rent history or in the wholly past, embrace a 
great mass of details, which, by the various and 
conflicting directions of their action, not only 
perplex the inquirer with a sense of utter con- 
fusion, but also cover, and to a first glance effect- 
ually conceal, the determinative conditions. Such 
conditions, however, there always are ; and these 



>-^ 



vi Preface 

shape and govern the whole range of incidents, 
often in themselves apparently chaotic in com- 
bination, and devoid of guidance by any adequate 
controlling forces. 

In history entirely past, where an issue has 
been reached sufficiently definite to show that one 
period has ended and another begun, it is possible 
for a careful observer to detect, and with some 
precision to formulate, the leading causes, and to 
trace the interaction which has produced the 
result. It is obviously much less easy to discover 
the character and to fix the inter-relation of the 
elements acting in the present; still more to in- 
dicate the direction of their individual movement, 
from which conjecture may form some conception 
as to what shall issue as the resultant of forces. 
There is here all the difference between history 
and prophecy. 

Nevertheless, although the one study is more 
certain, the other is more urgent. Past history 
contains indeed lessons which, well digested, are 
most valuable for future guidance ; but, when the 
attempt is made to utilize their teachings, con- 



Preface vii 

temporary conditions are found to differ so much 
from those preceding them that application be- 
comes a matter of no slight difficulty, requiring 
judgment and conjecture rather than imparting 
certainty. Positiveness in such matters, indeed, 
is the doubtful privilege of the doctrinaire^ and 
commonly unfortunate in the result. The in- 
struction derived from the past must be supple- 
mented by a particularized study of the indications 
of the future. 

Although assuredness of conclusion is denied 
to this process, we can still be confident that 
under all surface conditions, present as past, there 
must lie permanent facts, and factors, the detection 
and specification of which ascertains at least the 
existence and character of certain determinative 
features, and the relations subsisting between 
them. Even so much is gain ; and gain it will 
remain for the guidance of nations and of man- 
kind, even though it be not possible to forecast 
the precise combination into which, through the 
operation of unforeseen events, these various 
factors will ultimately fall. 



viii Preface 

The determination of these distinct factors, in 
a present question of great moment, and, so far 
as may be, the investigation of their mutual rela- 
tions, are the objects of the present study. The 
first paper — The Problem of Asia — aims at the 
selection and exposition of the great permanent 
features. It was nearly completed, in its three 
chapters, by the first of the current year — 1900; 
and therefore antedates entirely the recent out- 
breaks in China, although the causes of these 
were doubtless operative some time before. The 
second paper, — Effect of Asiatic Conditions upon 
World Policies, — written in August, attempts to 
trace the influences that will be exerted by the 
permanent features, previously noted, upon the 
passing political conditions, under \vhich present 
policies have to take shape. 

The insertion of the third paper — Merits of 
the Transvaal Dispute — has been an afterthought. 
Having had occasion in the other articles to re- 
affirm more than once my conviction of the essen- 
tial righteousness of the British cause in South 
Africa, it has seemed to me pertinent to add 



Preface ix 

thereto, in justification of this belief, a summary of 
the facts and arguments by which it was reached. 

It remains to express my thanks to the propri- 
etors of " Harper's New Monthly Magazine " 
and of the " North American Review," for their 
kind permission to reproduce the articles in book 
form. 

A. T. MAHAN. 
September, igoo. 



CONTENTS 

I. THE PROBLEM OF ASIA 

From Harper's New Monthly Magazine 

Chapter I. — March, 1900 

Page 

The paradox of long and short views i 

Applicable to both personal and corporate life ... i 

Specially illustrated in world movements 2 

World conditions in constant flux 3 

Consequent effect upon actions of governments ... 3 

The Present the guardian of the Future 3 

Impulse in United States towards expansion .... 4 

Closely related to like movements in Europe .... 4 

Illustrations 4 

Effects upon international relations 5 

Long and short view illustrated in recent American 

history 5 

Development of the idea of expansion 6 

Stopped short once at Hawaii 7 

To that point the idea essentially defensive .... 7 

Sudden precipitation of Philippine question .... 8 
Time needed to settle firmly new conditions of national 

responsibility 9 

Necessary nevertheless to consider at once the future to 

which they point 9 

Such consideration facilitates decision in sudden emer- 
gencies 10 



xii Contents 

Chapter I. — March, 1900 — continued Ymx 

Presence of mind dependent upon preparation ... 10 

Our war with Spain not a disconnected incident ... 11 
Rapid change in attitude of Japan towards United States 

concerning Hawaii 11 

Scope of Monroe Doctrine defined 13 

Illustrates a general maxim of statesmanship . . . . 14 

Is not applicable to Asia 15 

Force of tradition upon popular conception of Monroe 

Doctrine 16 

Principle permanent, application variable 16 

Increased importance of European conditions to Amer- 
ican interests 17 

Consequent necessity of appreciating European inter- 
national politics 17 

The interest of the world centring upon Asia . . . . 18 
Conditions and circumstances of the question should be 

studied 18 

Primary importance of geographical features . . . . 18 

Political problems closely analogous to military ... 19 

Importance of " communications " to both . . . . 19 

Facility of transmission the attribute of sea power . . 20 

Geographical analysis of Asian Continent 20 

Climatic conditions. Monsoons ....... 20 

Important middle belt, between 30° and 40° North . . 21 

Unstable political conditions in this belt 22 

In Asia, division is east and west, movement north and 

south 22 

Necessary to study characteristics of movement , . . 22 
In political study, impossible to dissociate Eastern Asia 

from Western . 23 

Present distribution of stable political forces .... 24 

Continuous mass of Russian territory 24 



Contents xiil 

Chapter I. — March, i 900 — continued Vp.g^ 

Military advantages of Russian position 25 

Its points of military weakness 26 

The geographical position of Great Britain in Asia . . 27 

Characteristics of British military strength 27 

Relation of India to military power of British Empire . 27 

Intrinsic advantages of India as a base In Asia . . . 28 
Effect of British and Russian tenures in Asia upon the 

policy of the two empires 29 

Self-preservation the first natural law of states .... 29 

Scope to grow essential to self-preservation 30 

Growth, like evolution, gives rise to conflict . . . . 30 

Nations are trustees for posterity 30 

Recourse to arbitration conditioned by trusteeship . . 31 
The need and right to grow, factors In the Problem of 

Asia 31 

Growth depends on vigor of organization and freedom of 

intercourse 31 

Internal organization a national, not an International ques- 
tion 32 

Interchange necessarily Involves other peoples . . . . 32 
Freedom of Interchange In Asia, an Interest common to 

all commercial states 33 

Consequent jealousy of Inimical military Influences . . 33 

Movements of acquisition already begun 34 

Commercial possibilities of Asia great, but still Indefinite 35 

The question one of scale rather than proportion . . . 35 

Bearing of external communications upon the problem . 36 

Communications twofold: by sea and by land . . . 36 
Suggests the multiform struggle between land and sea 

power 37 

Sea and land power exemplified In Great Britain and 

Russia 37 



xiv Contents 

Chapter I. — March, iqoo — cotitinued „ 

^ Page 

Superior copiousness and cheapness of water communica- 
tions 38 

Their consequent preponderance in development of Asia 38 
Control of communications a question of naval power . 3 8 
Mutual influence of land and sea power, when in con- 
tact 39 

Importance of the Yang-tse-kiang to sea power ... 41 

Interest of commerce in the maintenance of peace . . 42 

Military force essential to secure peace 42 

Incapacity of navies to threaten liberty 4a 

Dependence of Russia upon land communications . . 42 

This condition not susceptible of much modification . . 43 
Consequent disadvantage of Russia for the pursuits of 

commerce 43 

Resultant inevitable tendency to acquire maritime positions 44 

Effect upon the policy of other states 45 

Obligations of other states to their own people and to 

the peoples of Asia 45 

Complexity and imminence of the Problem of Asia . . 46 

Chapter II. — April, 1900 

Russia's predominant land power in Asia 47 

Counterbalance by indirect pressure ....... 47 

Military meaning of " diversion" 48 

Relative mutual effect of flanks and centre of a line . . 48 

Advantages of pressure, or of attack, on a flank . . . 48 

Factors essential to durable peace in Asia 49 

International uneasiness concerning Asia 49 

Danger of failure to weigh conditions, and forecast future 49 

Peace within Europe, how preserved at present . . . 50 

Analogy in Asia 50 

Indirect pressure by control of sea and of commerce . . 51 



Contents xv 

Chapter II. — April, i 900 — continued 

Political danger of granting immunity to so-called " pri- 
vate property" at sea 52 

Goods in commercial transit are not "private" property 53 

Russia's advance in Asia is by the flanks 55 

Its objects, threefold access to the sea 56 

Interests and opportunities of other states 57 

Objectives of policy in Asia 58 

Turkey in Asia and Persia — topographic features . . 58 

Present internal and political conditions 58 

Advance from such conditions in the past, how effected . 60 

Instances — India and Egypt 61 

Application to future of Western Asia and of China . . 61 

Twofold characteristics of movements now in progress . 62 

1. Upon both flanks. 

2. Antagonism of sea power and land power. 

Artificial relation of France to Russia 63 

Solidarity of interest in sea powers 63 

Particular conditions of each sea power 63 

Relative military situations on either flank 64 

Importance of Yang-tse to sea power 65 

Military situations condition policy 65 

Influence of position of Chinese capital 66 

Political and military conditions in Western Asia and 

the Levant 67 

Conflicting interests of France and Italy in the Medi- 
terranean 67 

French ambitions in the Mediterranean 67 

Effects upon security of Suez route 67 

Indirect interest of the United States and Japan . . . 68 

Military dangers of the Suez route 69 

Its decisive military superiority to that by Cape of Good 

Hope 70 



XV i Contents 



Chapter II. — April, 1900- „ — 

Egypt and Asiatic Turkey by position control Suez 

route 70 

Consequent necessity and effect of political development 70 

Development there can begin only from without . . . 72 
Its character will depend upon that of the external 

influence 73 

No analogue to the Yang-tse in Levantine Turkey . . 75 
Political effect of railroad from Mediterranean to Per- 
sian Gulf 76 

Importance of harmony among sea powers 76 

Relative commercial value to the world of Eastern and 

Western Asia 77 

Superior military consequence of Western Asia . . . 77 

French preponderance in West"Srn Mediterranean . . . 78 

Conditions change east of Sicily 78 

Present difficulties of sea powers maintaining naval force 

in the Levant -78 

To be met only by establishing local political influence . 79 

Inalienable strategic importance of Egypt 79 

Its central position, and double line of communications . 80 

Twofold obligation of Great Britain to hold it ... 80 

1 . Duty to continue work of regeneration. 

2. Essential to integrity of British Empire. 

Inexpediency of abandoning Suez route 81 

Napoleon's saying — "War cannot be made without 

running risks" 82 

True solution of military dilemmas of Suez route . . . 82 

Historical importance of Eastern Mediterranean . . . 82 

The world's progress east and west, not north and south 83 

Significance of Isthmuses of Suez and Panama .... 84 

Situation at Suez more critical than at Panama . . . 84 

Effect of these considerations upon political traditions . 85 



Contents xvii 

Chapter II. — April, i goo — continued „ 

^ Page 

Diminished importance of South Africa, and of America 

south of valley of the Amazon 86 

Modifying effect upon Monroe Doctrine 86 

Necessity of concentrating national effort by excluding 

minor issues ; .... 86 

The future of Asiatic peoples 86 

Their general stolid conservatism 87 

Effect of external influences 87 

Grave possibilities of the Chinese masses 88 

Consequent importance of the direction imparted by ex- 
ternal impulse 88 

Necessity for serious study and prevision 89 

The result, the introduction of Eastern peoples into the 

European commonwealth 90 

Racial characteristics must remain 91 

Parallel in the assimilation of Roman civilization by 

Teutonic races 91 

The Roman law and the imperial idea 91 

Inherited by the centralized Christian Church . . . . 91 
The Christian tradition the unifying thread of European 

civilization 92 

The grounds for hope 93 

Superior political vitality of a community of states over 

a consolidated empire 94 



Chapter III. — May, 1900 

Present imminent condition of Asiatic problem . 

Rivalries of external nations 

Consideration due to native populations . 

Not necessarily due to existing native governments 

Present uneasiness result of inefficient government 



96 

97 
97 
98 

99 



xviii Contents 

Chapter III. — May, 1900 — continued y^g^ 

Necessity for action laid upon foreign states .... 99 

Alternative methods of action 99 

Conditions of an efficacious solution 100 

I. Political equilibrium among external powers, 
a. Material and spiritual progress of native inhabi- 
tants. 

Results to be expected 101 

Results attained in Japan loi 

Difference in conditions between Japan and China . . 102 
Best development through diversified influences by dif- 
fering race-types 102 

Advantage of strong oppositions in international polity . 103 
Equilibrium represented by land and sea power in oppos- 
ing scales 104 

Special interest of Teutonic powers 104 

Necessity of co-operation 104 

Special difficulties attendant upon co-operation of states 104 

Need to convince citizens of free states 104 

Simplicity of Russian political organization . . . . 104 

French alliance with Russia 105 

Resultant divergence of interests among Latin states . 1 05 

France imperfectly Latin in type 105 

Consequent defective influence of Latin states in Asiatic 

problem 106 

Slavonic and Teutonic the chief European influences . 106 

Peculiar relation of Japan to the Asiatic problem . . 106 

Japan essentially a sea power 106 

Limitations upon the scope of her action 106 

1. Because of limited area and wealth. 

2. Because of restrlctedly local character of her 

interests. 

Similarity of interests in Japan and the Teutonic states . 107 



Contents xix 

Chapter III. — May, i qoo — continued 

Page 

Essential differences of European civilization, as now 

found in both io8 

Japan racially Asiatic, adoptively European . . . , io8 

Advantage of this factor to the Asiatic future . . . 109 

Misunderstandings natural between differing race-types no 

How best to be obviated in 

Unanimity the aim, rather than uniformity . . . . in 

Necessity of mutual respect between races . . . . in 

The Problem of Asia to be approached in this spirit . 113 

Conservative inertia of Asiatic peoples 114 

Japan the sole exception 114 

Antagonism of type in Slav and Teuton 114 

Conflict between their interests ..115 

Opposition must be recognized in order to conciliation . 115 

Land power the prerogative of Slavs 116 

Sea power that of the Teuton states 116 

These conditions, being essential, cannot be reversed . 116 

They may, however, be modified 116 

Racial and national interests demand such modification . 117 

Russia's need of freer access to the sea 117 

Opposing exigencies of the Teuton situation . . . . 117 
Direction in which the claim of Russia should be cor- 
dially conceded 120 

Essential necessity of Yang-tse valley to the sea powers ' 120 

Their secure access to it to be cordially conceded . . lao 

Co-operation between naval states imperative . . . . 121 

Land power more menacing to China than sea power . 121 

Reasons 121 

Commerce essentially tends to peace 122 

The future of Asia dependent upon military considera- 
tions 124 

The question of communications 125 



XX Contents 

Chapter III. — May, 1900 — continued Page 

Communications dominate war 125 

The sea the chief medium of world communications . 125 
Consequent influence of sea power upon Asian prob- 
lem 126 

Sea power exerts its eff"ect by indirect pressure, — by 

diversion 126 

Right to control maritime commerce is therefore essen- 
tial to it, and not to be surrendered 126 

The three Teutonic states — Germany, Great Britain, 

and the United States 127 

Only Germany and Great Britain directly interested in 

Levant 127 

Requirements to the establishing of their position there . 127 

Peculiar interest of Great Britain . 128 

Interest of the United States, indirect but real . . . 129 

Indifference of American citizens to external questions . 130 

Urgent necessity to amend this defect 131 

Pacific Ocean and Eastern Asia the coming chief centre 

of world interest 131 

Interests there of the Teutonic states not the same, yet 

similar 133 

Conditions of efficient mutual support 134 

1. Participation in a common purpose, rather than 

assumption of a literal obligation. 

2. Candid recognition of respective interests and 

spheres of responsibility. 

3. Abstention from permanent formal obligations. 

4. Retention of independence in individual state 

action. 

5. Results : co-operation, not alliance. 
Modifying effect of new conditions upon applications of 

Monroe Doctrine .....135 



Contents xxi 



Chapter III. — May, iqoo — continued 

^ Page 

Only the United States directly interested in the Carib- 
bean and its Isthmus 136 

Increasing mutual comprehension between the English- 
speaking communities 139 

Promises endurance, because resulting from permanent 

conditions 139 

Evidenced in our war with Spain and in the Transvaal 

hostilities 140 

Tendency of mankind to aggregate into groups greater 

than existing nationalities 141 

War a principal instrument in this process, historically. 

Instances 141 

Justification of war between United States and Spain, 

and of Great Britain in South Africa 142 

Security of the foundations for Anglo-American co- 
operation 144 

Ethnic relation of Germany to the English-speaking 

communities . 144 

Relation of Italy to present world movements . . . 145 



II. EFFECT OF ASIATIC CONDITIONS 
UPON WORLD POLICIES 

From North American Review, November, 1900 

Extraordinary events since the writing of preceding 

papers 147 

Common eifect upon European nations 147 

The United States and Japan members of European 

commonwealth 147 

Japan's claims to be so considered 148 

Parallel in Teutonic entrance into Roman civilization . 149 



xxii Contents 

II. Asiatic Conditions — cofitinued 

Page 

Difference between the conditions of the Roman world 

then, and Christian civilization now 149 

Japan the only Asiatic participant of European progress 150 

Influence of insular environment 151 

Recent events have not changed permanent conditions . 152 
They do not indicate any change of Asiatic character- 
istics 152 

Consequently, no permanent change in national policies 153 
Momentary necessity for combined action of European 

states 153 

Obligation of states during such a passing moment . . 153 

Permanent policy resumes sway afterwards . . . . 154 
Europe's community, as well as divergence, of interest 

in Asia 154 

Recent declaration of policy by United States Govern- 
ment 155 

Consistent with our past line of action 155 

Course of governments controlled by public opinion . 156 

Necessity for individual citizens to study the conditions 156 

Imperfect knowledge the source of popular fickleness . 157 

Summary of world conditions 157 

General competition for world's commerce . . . . 158 
Effort to compass end by appropriation of territory, or 

by establishment of influence 159 

Results in international antagonism, resting upon armed 

force 159 

Fixity of political tenure in Europe and America . . 159 
Analogous condition in Africa and the islands of the 

sea 159 

Different political status of Asia 160 

Necessary policy of the maritime powers 161 

Particular conditions of the United States 162 



Contents xxiii 

II. Asiatic Conditions — continued 

Page 
Commercial and political importance of the Yang-tse 

valley 164 

Present close contact of Eastern and Western civiliza- 
tions 165 

Interaction can no longer be avoided . . . . . . 166 

Guidance all that can be attempted 166 

Freedom of thought and speech requisite, as well as 

freedom to trade 166 

Principal objects in dealing with Chinese question . . 167 

1. Prevention of preponderant control by any one 

state. 

2. Insistence upon the "open door" for speech, 

as well as for commerce. 
Baselessness of outcry against missionary effort . . . 168 
Christianity an effective part of Western civilization . 168 

Critical importance of present moment 169 

Necessity for United States to prepare for her part in 

the future 169 

Preparation of purpose and preparation of power . . 169 
Preparation of power implies also curtailment of need- 
less efforts 170 

Policy of the United States clearly defined by its gov- 
ernment 170 

Diverse in spirit from that of some other states . . . 171 

The difference calls for watchfulness 171 

The " open door " can be maintained only by readi- 
ness to enforce it 172 ' 

National influence depends upon evidence of purpose 

and of power 172 

Matters cannot safely be allowed to drift 173 

Incapacity of China to develop unaided 174 

Aim of recent reactionary movement 174 



xxiv Contents 

II. Asiatic Conditions — continued Ykgy. 

"' Must be resisted 5 by force, if necessary 174 

This will be done, even if the United States stands aside 1 74 

The signs of the times 175 

The Yang-tse valley the great field for commerce and 

for sea power 176 

Powers in competition upon the field 177 

Power of independent action always limited . . . . 177 

Consequent necessity for co-operation 178 

Co-operation rests upon community of interests and 

standards 178 

Does not renounce individual responsibility . . . . 178 

Implies also division of labor 179 

Co-operation not only local in Asia 179 

Distributed likewise between the ocean lines of com- 
munication 179 

Two chief lines — from Europe and from America. . 179 

Europe ^na Suez, America 'via Panama 179 

Decisive points on each line 180 

Under co-operation, the American line is the charge of 

the United States, as well as her interest . . . . 180 
Our claim to preponderant consideration in the Carib- 
bean practically conceded 180 

Not a barren triumph only, but a responsibility . . . 181 
United States needs effective naval force in both Pacific 

and Atlantic 181 

Communications by canal liable to interruption . . . 182 

i Military advantages of the " interior line " . . . . 182 
' Military use of canal depends mainly on the solidity of 

our naval power in the Caribbean 183 

Risk cannot be wholly eliminated from warfare . . . 183 

Probable security, however, obtainable 184 

First element of security an adequate fleet .... 1 84 



Contents xxv 

II. Asiatic Conditions — continued ^kcy. 

Conditions of adequacy defined . . , 184 

Great Britain formerly opposed to our preponderance in 

the Caribbean 185 

Reasons for her change of attitude in this respect . . 185 

Her interest now that we be in naval predominance there 186 

Probability of her moral support 186 

Her attitude during the recent war with Spain . . . 187 
Significanc of moral support, when based upon com- 
munity of interests 187 

Requires, however, evidence of due preparation of pur- 
pose and of power 189 

Bitterness towards Great Britain shown by some Amer- 
ican citizens 189 

Exaggerated inferences as to action thence drawn . . 190 
Sentiments, bitter or otherwise, permanent only when 

based on actual interest ...190 

The United States and Great Britain have common actual 

interests and common standards 190 

Bitterness therefore transient, not reflecting real interests 190 

The appreciation of such factors by statesmen . . . 190 
• Contrary effect upon them of backwardness in military 

and naval preparation 191 

Discussion of general conditions governing naval force 

needed by United States . 191 

Difference of level between Eastern and Western civili- 
zations 191 

Consequent danger when barriers disappear . . . . 192 

Importance of the Anglo-Saxon type to the final result 192 
Continuous vitality and power shown by it since known 

to history 192 

Duty of the United States to contribute to future racial 

action 193 



xxvi Contents 



II. Asiatic Conditions — continued p ^ 

Prejudices to be sacrificed to this end 194 

The Pacific and the East, the sphere for our external 

exertion 194 

Bearing of Great Britain's friendship upon the size of 

our navy 195 

Dependence of Great Britain upon her navy vital . . 197 
The United States self-dependent for the necessaries of 

existence 198 

Considerations determining the size of the United States 

navy 198 

Superior importance of providing an adequate number of 

trained seamen 199 

This element of force generally overlooked . . . . 199 
Retrenchment of external responsibilities by United 

States 201 

Application of Monroe Doctrine extended too far . . 201 
The valley of the Amazon suggests a possible broad 

dividing belt 202 

III. MERITS OF THE TRANSVAAL DISPUTE 

From the North American Review, March, 1900 
Merits of the Transvaal dispute 203 








\^ 






T33T oooe-ooos " p: 



THE 

PROBLEM OF ASIA 



CHAPTER I 



IN order to efficiency of action, whether in per- 
sonal or in corporate life, we have to recognize 
the coincident necessities of taking long views 
and of confining ourselves to short ones. The 
two ideas, although in contradiction logically, are 
in practice and in effect complementary, as are 
the centripetal and centrifugal forces of the uni- 
verse ; unless both are present, something is 
wanting to the due balance of judgment and 
of decision. This is, indeed, but one of many 
illustrations that the philosophy of life is best 
expressed in paradox. It is by frank acceptance 
of contrary truths, embracing both without effort 
to blend them, that we can best direct our course, 
as individuals or as nations, to successful issues. 
This observation receives practical illustration in 
the admitted political maxim that a strong oppo- 
sition is essential to successful representative gov- 
ernment. Thus it is again that only by a minute 



The Problem of Asia 



mastery of details can a solid foundation be laid 
upon which to build opinion ; yet unless details 
are thrust aside, and reflection fastens upon the 
leading features only of a problem of conduct, 
it is difficult, if not impossible, clearly to perceive 
the mutual relations of the parts and their pro- 
portions to the whole, upon a just sense of which 
depends correctness of appreciation, with conse- 
quent discretion of action. 

Beyond all other movement, beyond all cor- 
porate or even national experience, the progress 
of the world illustrates the necessities and the 
uncertainties with which thought has to contend, 
and under the stress of which it must develop 
into policy and assert itself in conduct. This is, 
of course, an inevitable result of enlargement of 
scale, and the world movement presents action 
upon the greatest of all scales. There is vastly 
more of detail and of surprise, of the complicated 
and of the unexpected. Every nation or race 
deals with its own problems, — those of its in- 
ternal and of its external life ; but the fortune 
of each exerts a specific influence upon the gen- 
eral outcome. Not only are those influences 
very diverse in themselves, but they cause inces- 
sant change in the relations of the parts to each 



The Proble7n of Asia 



other and to the whole. Relative importance 
and the nature of that importance are subject to 
continual fluctuation. Enmities succeed to friend- 
ships ; strength declines to weakness ; accident, 
as men call it, in a moment and amid universal 
astonishment reverses conditions. Still, although 
liable at any moment to see hopes overthrown, 
combinations frustrated, and even the solidest 
foundations giving under their feet, nations and 
their rulers must take account of existing tenden- 
cies, argue from the present to the future, estimate 
the relative weight of contemporary factors, and 
from them forecast the probable issue, although 
it seem to lie beyond the horizon of their own 
generation ; for in their day they are the guar- 
dians of posterity, and may not shirk their trust. 
They must, in short, take long views, and upon 
them in due measure act as opportunity permits ; 
yet withal the uncertainties, both of calculations 
and of events, are so great, the difficulties of pre- 
diction and of speculation so obvious, that they 
are compelled to treat the situation of each 
moment in the light of immediate necessities, 
to take short views, to look primarily to their 
feet and to the next step, endeavoring only, if 
they may, that this be in the general direction 



The Problem of Asia 



which their practical sagacity has indicated as the 
far goal of the nation's good. 

It would be an interesting study, but one quite 
apart from the object of this paper, to trace the 
genesis and evolution in the American people of 
the impulse towards expansion which has recently 
taken so decisive a stride. To do this ade- 
quately would involve the consideration of a 
volume of details, in order to extricate from them 
the leading features which characterize and dem- 
onstrate the vital sequence in the several stages 
of advance. The treatment of the matter, how- 
ever, would be very imperfect if it failed clearly 
to recognize and to state that it is but one phase 
of a sentiment that has swept over the whole 
civilized European world within the last few 
decades, salient evidences of which are found in 
the advance of Russia in Asia, in the division of 
Africa, in the colonial ambitions of France and 
of Germany, in the naval growth of the latter, 
in the development of Japan, and in the British 
idea of Imperial Federation, now fast assuming 
concrete shape in practical combined action in 
South Africa. Every great state has borne its 
part in this common movement, the significance 
of which cannot be ignored. We may not know 



The Problein of Asia 



whence it comes nor whither it goes, but there it is. 
We see it and we hear it, and our own share in 
it has already radically changed our relations 
towards foreign states and races. Whatever its 
future, a future it clearly has, to read which men 
must lift up their hearts and strain their eyes, 
while at the same time they neglect not the pres- 
ent, but do with their might that which their 
hand at the moment finds to do. 

A study of a particular phase of this possible 
future, as it appears to one man, is the object of 
this present paper. Before, however, proceeding 
with such consideration, it may be interesting, 
and not inappropriate, to note in briefest outline 
how singularly the long view and the short view 
have received illustration in the recent course of 
events. The intrinsic importance of Cuba, of the 
West Indies in general, and of the Isthmus of 
Panama, to the political, commercial, and military 
interests of the United States, was long ago per- 
ceived. To illustrate this by detailed account, 
from the words and actions of public men, would 
require an article — rather, perhaps, a volume — 
by itself; but it is easy to note, rising above the 
sea of incidental details, of diplomatic negotia- 
tions and governmental recommendations, a few 



The Problem of Asia 



landmarks, such as the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 
the attempt under Grant's administration to 
annex Santo Domingo, the abortive negotiations 
for the purchase of the Danish islands, our treaty 
with Colombia guaranteeing the transit of the 
Isthmus railway. Solicitude, which traced its 
origin to the early years of the century, increased 
to conviction as the expansion of the country 
emphasized the consciousness of a probable 
destiny. Deadened temporarily by the outbreak 
of the civil war, which it antedated by genera- 
tions, it revived immediately upon its conclusion — 
the insistence upon the French withdrawal from 
Mexico being a first-fruits of quickened life. For 
the moment the long view had yielded to the 
imperious demands of the short ; but, the emer- 
gency over, the nation again lifted its eyes and 
looked afar. 

Meantime events had progressed and continued 
to progress. New factors had entered into the 
conditions, while the bearing and importance of 
old factors were seen more clearly and forcibly, 
for time had brought them out of the haze of 
distant speculation, and nearer to the decisive 
moment of action. The school of thought that 
looked to expansion became more incisive and 



The Problem of Asia 



outspoken, its ideas increasing in scope and in 
definiteness of expression. The long view, rais- 
ing its vision gradually above the Antilles and 
the Isthmus, as these drew more into the fore- 
ground, saw beyond them the Pacific, Hawaii, 
and the beginning of momentous issues in China 
and Japan. There insight again was baffled ; 
unless it may be claimed, as evidence of a wider 
range, that the country and the exponents of 
expansion, in common with the world at large, 
had at last aroused to consciousness of the deter- 
mining influence of sea power upon the history 
of the world. Sea power, however, is but the 
handmaid of expansion, its begetter and pre- 
server; it is not itself expansion, nor did the 
advocates of the latter foresee room for advance 
beyond the Pacific. Their vision reached not 
past Hawaii, which also, as touching the United 
States, they regarded from the point of view of 
defence rather than as a stepping-stone to any 
farther influence in the world. So far as came 
under the observation of the writer — and his 
interest in the matter dated back several years — 
the expansionists themselves, up to the war with 
Spain, were dominated by the purely defensive 
ideas inherited from the earlier days of our 



8 The Problem of Asia 

national existence. The Antilles, Cuba, the 
Isthmus, and Hawaii were up to that time simply 
outposts — positions — where it was increasingly- 
evident that influences might be established dan- 
gerous to the United States as she then was. Such 
influences must be forestalled ; if not by imme- 
diate action, at least by a definite policy. 

It was to such a state of mind that the war 
with Spain came ; and the result has the special 
interest of showing the almost instantaneous 
readiness with which a seed of thought germinates 
when it falls upon mental soil prepared already 
to receive it. Reflection and discussion, voice 
and pen, platform and press, had broken up the 
fallow ground left untilled by the generations 
which succeeded the fathers of the republic. 
Habit had familiarized men's minds with the 
idea of national power spreading beyond the 
bounds of this continent, and with the reasons 
that made it advisable, if not imperative. Though 
staggered for an instant by a proposition so 
entirely unexpected and novel as Asiatic domin- 
ion, the long view had done its work of prepara- 
tion ; and the short view, the action necessary 
at the minute, imposed primarily and inevitably 
by the circumstances of the instant, found no 



The Problem of Asia 



serious difficulty of acceptance, so far as concerned 
the annexation of the Philippines — the widest 
sweep, in space, of our national extension. 

We have for the time being quite sufficient to 
occupy our activities in accommodating ourselves 
to these new conditions, and in organizing our 
duties under them. But while this is true as 
touching immediate action, it is not necessarily, 
nor equally, true as regards thought, directed 
upon the future. After a brief rest in contem- 
plation of the present, effi^rt must be resumed, 
not merely to note existing conditions, but to 
appreciate the tendencies involved in them — 
history in embryo — the issue of which will here- 
after concern us or our descendants. Events of 
recent years have substantially changed the 
political relations of states, and thereby have 
imposed such a study of these as shall give point 
and direction to that long view of the distant 
future which, uncertain though it be in its calcu- 
lations, and liable to sudden disconcertment, is 
nevertheless essential, if sagacious and continuous 
guidance is to be given to the course of a nation. 
Such study will require an intelligent and sus- 
tained resolution ; for, with the possible exception 
of the Monroe doctrine, the people of the United 



lo The Problem of Asia 

States have been by long habit indifferent to the 
subject of external policies. They have been so 
not only as the result of our particular circum- 
stances of isolation, but by deliberate intention, 
inherited from a day when such abstinence was 
better justified than now, and depended upon a 
well-known, though misunderstood, warning of 
Washington against entangling alliances. Under 
changed conditions of the world, from the in- 
fluence of which we cannot escape, it is impera- 
tive to arouse to the necessity of conscious effort, 
in order to recognize and to understand broad 
external problems, not merely as matters of 
general information or of speculative interest, but 
as questions in which we ourselves have, or may 
have, the gravest direct concern, as affecting our- 
selves or our children. 

It is by such long views that is developed the 
readiness of decision, in unexpected conjunctures 
of international politics, which corresponds to 
presence of mind in common life ; for ordinarily 
presence of mind means preparedness of mind, 
through previous reflection upon possible con- 
tingencies. The need of such readiness — of sus- 
tained apprehension of actual and of probable 
future conditions — receives the clearest demon- 



The Problem of Asia 1 1 

stration from our recent experience. What more 
sudden or less expected, what, in a word, more 
illustrative of a short view resulting in decisive 
action, taken at a moment's notice, can be ad- 
duced than that a war begun with Spain about 
Cuba should result in tendering us the position 
of an Asiatic Power, with the consequent respon- 
sibilities and opportunities ? Evidently a mind 
prepared by deliberation upon contemporary 
occurrences and tendencies is no mean equipment 
for prompt decision in such a case. It is in no 
wise a disconnected incident that the United 
States has been suddenly drawn out of her 
traditional attitude of apartness from the struggle 
of European states, and had a new element forced 
into her polity. The war with Spain has been 
but one of several events, nearly simultaneous, 
which have compelled mankind to fix their atten- 
tion upon eastern Asia, and to realize that condi- 
tions there have so changed as to compel a 
readjustment of ideas, as well as of national poli- 
cies and afEHations. Nothing is more calculated 
to impress the mind with the seriousness of the 
impending problems than the known fact that 
Japan, which less than four years ago notified 
our government of her disinclination to our 



12 The Problem of Asia 

annexation of Hawaii, now with satisfaction sees 
us in possession of the Phihppines. 

The ahered conditions in the East have doubt- 
less resulted — as did American expansion- — 
from certain preparative antecedents, less obvious 
at the time of their occurrence, and which there- 
fore then escaped particular notice ; but the inci- 
dents that have signalized the change have been 
compacted into a very few years. Hence they 
possess the attribute of suddenness, which natu- 
rally entails for a time a lack of precise compre- 
hension, with the necessary consequence of vague- 
ness in opinion. Nevertheless, there they are ; 
matters of grave international moment to those 
older nationalities, from whom heretofore we have 
held ourselves sedulously aloof. Side by side with 
them is our own acceptance of the Phihppines, an 
act which we could not rightly avoid, and which 
carries with it opportunity. Opportunity, how- 
ever, can never be severed from responsibility ; for, 
whether utilized or neglected, a decision, positive 
or negative, is made, which cannot be dissociated 
from the imputation of moral right or wrong, of 
intellectual mistake or of wisdom. 

It may be well here to consider for a moment 
the charge, now often made, that by the accept- 



The Problem of Asia 13 

ance of the Philippines, and, still more, by any 
further use of the opportunities they may give 
us, we abandon the Monroe doctrine. The 
argument, if it can be allowed that name, derives 
such force as it has from appeal to prejudice ; a 
word which, although it has an invidious asso- 
ciation, does not necessarily imply more than 
opinion already formed, and which, if resting on 
solid basis, is entitled to full respect, unless, and 
until, it refuses to face new conditions. The 
Monroe doctrine, however, commits us only to 
a national policy, which may be comprehensively 
summarized as an avowed purpose to resist the 
; extension of the European system to the Amer- 
i ican continents. As a just counterweight to this 
pretension, which rests in no wise upon inter- 
national law, but upon our own interests as we 
understand them, we have adopted, as a rule of 
action, abstention from interference - — even by 
suggestion, and much more by act — in ques- 
tions purely European. 

Of these complementary positions, neither the 
one nor the other possesses any legal standing, 
any binding force, of compact or of precedent. 
We are at liberty to abandon either at once, 
without incurring any just imputation of unlaw- 



14 The Problem of Asia 

ful action. Regarded, however, purely as a 
matter of policy, and as such accepted as wise, 
by what process of reasoning is it to be estab- 
lished that either the one rule or the other bars 
us, on the ground of consistency, from asserting 
what we think our rights in Asia? In its incep- 
tion the Monroe doctrine was, I suppose, a 
recognition of the familiar maxim of statesmen 
that geographical propinquity is a source of 
trouble between nations, which we, being favored 
by natural isolation, proposed to avert ; and to 
this proposition the determination to keep clear 
of questions internal to Europe was an inevitable 
corollary. We took advantage, in short, of an 
opportunity extended to us by fortunate con- 
ditions to assure our national quiet. But there 
are provinces other than geographical in which 
the interests of nations approach and mingle, 
and in those we have never been deterred by the 
Monroe doctrine from acting as our duties or 
our interests demanded. It has never, that I 
know, been seriously wished to compass our 
ends by the acquisition of European territory, 
for it would be neither expedient nor justifiable, 
even if possible, to unsettle conditions the per- 
manency of which is the secure evolution of cen- 



The Problem of Asia 1 5 

turies of racial and national history ; but we have 
had no scruples of justice or of expediency as to 
extension of territory in this hemisphere, where 
no such final adjustments had been reached. 
Now in Asia we are confronted at this moment 
by questions in which our interests will probably 
be largely involved. There is no more inconsis- 
tency in taking there such action as the case de- 
mands than there has been in any international 
difference we have hitherto had with a Euro- 
pean power ; while if such action should in- 
volve use of territory, directly or incidentally, by 
possession or by control — sphere of influence — 
it will only be because decadent conditions there 
shall hereafter have resulted in a lack of power, 
either to perpetuate a present system or to resist 
encroachments which the progress of the world 
under the impulse of more virile states is sure 
to entail. There is certainly no desire, but 
rather unwillingness, on the part of the United 
States to undertake such an addition to her 
responsibilities, otherwise sufficiently great ; both 
her traditions and her present policy are neces- 
sarily adverse to such action. Still it must be 
considered as a possible contingency, however 
deplorable, for, if life departs, a carcass can be 



1 6 The Problem of Asia 

utilized only by dissection or for food ; the 
gathering to it of the eagles is a natural law, of 
which it is bootless to complain. The onward 
movement of the world has to be accepted as a 
fact, to be advantageously dealt with by guidance, 
not by mere opposition, still less by unprofitable 
bewailing of things irretrievably past. 

The Monroe doctrine has been and continues 
to be a good serviceable working theory, resting 
on undeniable conditions. But, having now a 
lifetime of several generations, it has acquired an 
added force of tradition, of simple conservatism, 
which has a bad as well as a good side. For 
tradition tends to invest accepted policy with 
the attribute of permanency, which only excep- 
tionally can be predicated of the circumstances 
of this changing world. The principles upon 
which an idea rests may conform to essential, and 
therefore permanent, truth ; but application con- 
tinually varies, and maxims, rules, doctrines, not 
being the living breath of principles, but only 
their embodiment — the temporary application 
of them to conditions not necessarily permanent 
— can claim no exemption from the ebb and 
flow of mundane things. We should not make 
of even this revered doctrine a fetich, nor per- 



The Problem of Asia 1 7 

suade ourselves that a modification is under no 
circumstances admissible. 

For instance, it has become probable that, 
whatever our continued adherence to the doc- 
trine itself, we may have somewhat to readjust 
our views of its corollary — that concerning 
apartness from European complications. It is 
not, indeed, likely, in any view that can be 
taken within our present horizon, that we should 
find reason for intervention in a dispute localized 
in Europe itself; but it is nevertheless most 
probable that we can never again see with indif- 
ference, and with the sense of security which 
characterized our past, a substantial, and still less 
a radical, change in the balance of power there. 
The progress of the world has brought us to a 
period when it is well within the range of possi- 
bilities that the declension of a European state 
might immediately and directly endanger our 
own interests ; might involve us in action, either 
to avert the catastrophe itself or to remedy its 
consequences. From this follows the obvious 
necessity of appreciating the relations to our- 
selves of the power inherent in various countries, 
due to their available strength and to their 
position ; what also their attitude towards us, 



The Problem of Asia 



resultant from the temper of the people, and the 
intelligent control of the latter by the government 

— two very different things, even in democratic 
communities. Herein, again, we only share the 
common fate of all nations ; for not only do all 
touch one another more closely than of old, but 

— and especially in Asia — conditions external 
to all are drawing the regard of all towards a 
common centre, where as yet nothing certain is 
determined, where the possibilities of the future 
are many, and diverse, and great. 

In so large a question as the future of Asia, 
upon which are now converging, from many 
quarters, streams of influence representing the 
interests, not of nationalities only, but of the 
larger groups which we know as races, it is well 
to study first the broad geographical features, in 
their several attributes — such as disposition, 
area, physical characteristics, distances — and 
thereafter the present political distribution, with 
the possibihties which result from both. To 
these considerations, pertaining to the continent 
itself, must be added an appreciation of the en- 
vironing circumstances, even if distant, which 
are involved in the territorial situation of other 
nations, Asiatic or European ; in their relative 



The Problem of Asia 19 

strength and its kinds — political, economical, 
military, naval ; in their readiness of access to 
the continent of Asia — the length, nature, and 
facilities of the communications to and fro ; the 
Asiatic positions, if such there be, now held by 
them — secondary bases, whence their influence, 
political or military, may be brought to bear. 
For the problem of Asia is a world problem, 
which has come upon the world in an age when, 
through the rapidity of communication, it is wide 
awake and sensible as never before, and by elec- 
trical touch, to every stirring in its members, and 
to the tendency thereof. But sensitiveness is not 
the same thing as understanding, any more than 
symptoms are identical with diagnosis. Study Is 
requisite ; and as a preliminary it may be ob- 
served that political problems into which the 
element of geography enters have much in com- 
mon with military strategy. There will be found 
in both a centre of interest — an objective ; the 
positions of the parties concerned, which are the 
bases of their strength and operations, even when 
these are peaceful ; and there is the ability to 
project their power to the centre of interest, which 
answers to the communications that play so lead- 
ing a part in military art, because power that can- 



20 The Problem of Asia 

not be transmitted freely ceases in so far to be 
operative power. It is, in fact, this quality, 
facility of transmission, that has made sea power 
so multifold in manifestation and in efficiency. 

As we look at the continent of Asia, in its 
length and breadth, we may note, first, that it lies 
wholly north of the equator, and in great part 
between the northern tropic and the arctic circle 
— that is, in the so-called temperate zone. The 
inferences as to climate which might be drawn 
from this are deceptive, owing to modifications 
occasioned by physical conditions. The great 
plains of the north and of the south — of Siberia 
and of India — are subject, respectively, to ex- 
tremes of cold and of heat, due primarily to the 
vast extent of land in the continent itself, which 
precludes the moderating power of the sea from 
exercising extensive influence. The effect of this 
immense region upon temperature is most strik- 
ingly shown in the monsoons, the periodical 
winds which alternate with the seasons — as land 
and sea breezes change with night and day — but 
which during their continuance have the steadi- 
ness characteristic of the permanent trades. This 
phenomenon, which prevails throughout the 
Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the China 



The Problem of Asia 21 

Sea, is attributable to the alternate heating and 
cooling of the continent, as the sun moves north 
or south of the equator, inducing a periodical set 
of the atmosphere — from the northeast during 
the winter, and from the southwest during the 
summer. 

Within its main outlines, the greatest breadth 
of the continent from east to west is about five 
thousand statute miles, following the thirtieth 
degree of north latitude ; but along the fortieth 
this distance is increased by some hundreds of 
miles, through the projection of two peninsulas 
— Asia Minor on the west, and Korea on the 
east. Between these two parallels are to be found, 
speaking roughly, the most decisive natural 
features, and also those political divisions the 
unsettled character of which renders the problem 
of Asia in the present day at once perplexing and 
imminent. Within this belt are the Isthmus of 
Suez, Palestine and Syria, Mesopotamia, the 
greater part of Persia, and Afghanistan — with 
the strong mountain ranges that mark these two 
countries and Armenia — the Pamir, the huge 
elevations of Tibet, and a large part of the valley 
of the Yang-tse-kiang, with the lower and most 
important thousand miles of that river's course. 



22 The Problem of Asia 

Within it also are the cities of Aleppo, Mosul, 
and Bagdad, of Teheran and Ispahan, of Merv 
and Herat, Kabul and Kandahar, and in the 
far east of China, Peking, Shanghai, Nanking, 
and Han-kow. No one of these is in the terri- 
tory of a state the stability of which can be said 
to repose securely upon its own strength, or even 
upon the certainty of non-interference by ambi- 
tious neighbors. The chain of the Himalayas is 
exterior to, but only a little south of, the zone 
indicated. Although Japan is extra-continental, 
it may be interesting to note that the greater part 
of her territory and the centre of her power lie 
also within the belt, and extend almost across it, 
from north to south. 

Within these bounds, speaking broadly and 
not exclusively, is the debatable and debated 
ground. North and south of it, in similar wide 
generalization, political conditions are relatively 
determined, though by no means absolutely fixed. 
Along the northern and southern borders, where 
exterior impulses impinge, there are uncertainty 
and jealousy, aggression and defence, not as yet 
military, but political. Still, whatever its form, 
such action is at bottom that of conflicting, if not 
contending, impulses. The division of Asia is 



The Problem of Asia 23 

east and west ; movement is north and south. 
It is the character of that movement, and its 
probable future, as indicated by the relative forces, 
and by the lines which in physics are called those 
of least resistance, that we are called to study; for 
in the greatness of the stake, and in the relative 
settledness of conditions elsewhere, there is assur- 
ance that there will continue to be motion until 
an adjustment is reached, either in the satisfaction 
of everybody, or by the definite supreniacy of 
some one of the contestants. Practically, if not 
logically, equilibrium may consist in decisive 
overweight, as well as in an even balance — 
another paradoxical truth. 

That the dividing line of unsettled political 
status is along the belt defined may be ascertained 
by a brief examination of a map. That move- 
ment is from and to the north and the south Is a 
matter of history — not yet a generation old — 
and of names familiar to all readers of news. 
The mere sound of Turkestan, Khiva, Merv, 
Herat, Kandahar, Kabul, attests the fact ; as do 
Manchuria and Port Arthur. Thus both in the 
western half and in the extreme east is observed 
the same tendency, which would be still more 
amply demonstrated by an appeal to history but 



24 The Problem of Asia 

little more remote. It is, in fact, no longer con- 
sistent with accuracy of forecast to draw a north 
and south line of severance ; to contemplate east- 
ern Asia apart from western ; to dissociate, prac- 
tically, the conditions and incidents in the one 
from those in the other. Both form living parts 
of a large problem, to which both contribute 
elements of perplexity. The relations of each to 
the other, and to the whole, must therefore be 
considered. 

Accepting provisionally the east and west belt 
of division as one stage in the process of analysis, 
we may profitably consider next the character and 
distribution of the forces whose northward and 
southward impulses constitute the primary factors 
in the process of change already initiated and still 
continuing. Upon a glance at the map one 
enormous fact immediately obtrudes itself upon 
the attention — the vast, uninterrupted mass of 
the Russian Empire, stretching without a break 
in territorial consecutiveness from the meridian of 
western Asia Minor, until to the eastward it 
overpasses that of Japan. In this huge distance 
no political obstacles intervene to impede the 
concentrated action of the disposable strength. 
Within the dominion of Russia only the distances 



The Problem of Asia 25 

themselves, and the hindrances — unquestionably- 
great and. manifold — imposed by natural condi- 
tions, place checks upon her freedom and fulness 
of movement. To this element of power — cen- 
tral position — is to be added the wedge-shaped 
outline of her territorial projection into central 
Asia, strongly supported as this is, on the one 
flank, by the mountains of the Caucasus and the 
inland Caspian Sea — wholly under her control — 
and on the other by the ranges which extend from 
Afghanistan, northeasterly, along the western 
frontier of China. From the latter, moreover, 
she as yet has no serious danger to fear. 

The fact of her general advance up to the 
present time, most of which has been made within 
a generation, so that the point of the wedge is now 
inserted between Afghanistan and Persia, must be 
viewed in connection with the tempting relative 
facility of farther progress through Persia to the 
Persian Gulf, and with the strictly analogous 
movement, on the other side of the continent, 
where long strides have been made through 
Manchuria to Port Arthur and the Gulf of 
Pe-chi-li. Thus, alike in the far east and in the 
far west, we find the same characteristic of 
remorseless energy, rather remittent than inter- 



26 The Problem of Asia 

mittent in its symptoms. Russia, in obedience 
to natural law and race instinct, is working, geo- 
graphically, to the southward in Asia by both 
flanks, her centre covered by the mountains of 
Afghanistan and the deserts of eastern Turkestan 
and Mongolia. Nor is it possible, even if it were 
desired, to interfere with the internal action, the 
mutual support, of the various sections of this 
extended line, whose length under the physical 
and political conditions is less an element of 
weakness ; for the Russian centre cannot be 
broken. It is upon, and from, the flanks of this 
great line that restraint, if needed, must come; 
the opposition of those who, with no ill-will to 
Russia, no grudging of her prosperity, neverthe- 
less think that undue predominance is an unsound 
condition in any body politic — in the parliament 
of man, if we may say so, as well as in that of a 
nation. In the federation of the world, if it ever 
come to pass, healthy politics will need an oppo- 
sition of parties, drawn doubtless along national 
or racial lines. 

As north and south are logically opposed, so it 
might be surmised that practically the opposition 
to this movement of Russia from the north would 
find its chief expression to the south of the broad 



The Problem of Asia 27 

dividing belt, between the thirtieth and fortieth 
parallels. In a measure this is so, but with a very 
marked distinction, not only in degree but in 
kind. In the progress of history, in which, as it 
unrolls, more and more of plan and of purpose 
seems to become evident, the great central penin- 
sula of southern Asia, also projecting wedge- 
shaped far north into the middle debatable zone, 
has come under the control of a people the heart 
of whose power is far removed from it locally, 
and who, to the concentration of territory charac- 
teristic of Russia's geographical position, present 
an extreme of racial and military dispersal. India, 
therefore, is to Great Britain not the primary 
base of operations, political and mihtary — for 
military action is only a specialized form of poli- 
tical. It is simply one of many contingent — 
secondary — bases, in different parts of the world, 
the action of which is susceptible of unification 
only by means of a supreme sea power. Of these 
many bases, India is the one best fitted, by near- 
ness and by conformation, both for effect upon 
Central Asia and for operations upon either ex- 
tremity of the long line over which the Russian 
front extends. Protected on the land side and 
centre by the mountains of Afghanistan and the 



28 The Problem of Asia 

Himalayas, its flanks, thrown to the rear, are 
unassailable, so long as the navy remains pre- 
dominant. They constitute also frontiers, from 
which, in the future as in the past, expeditions 
may make a refreshed and final start, for Egypt 
on the one hand, for China on the other ; and, it 
is needless to add, for any less distant destination 
in either direction. 

It is not intrinsically only that India possesses 
the value of a base to Great Britain. The cen- 
tral position which she holds relatively to China 
and to Egypt obtains also towards Australia and 
the Cape of Good Hope, assisting thus the con- 
centration upon her of such support as either 
colony can extend to the general policy of an 
Imperial Federation. Even in its immediate 
relations to Asiatic problems, however, India is 
not unsupported. On land and in the centre, 
the acquisition of Burmah gives a continuous 
extension of frontier to the east, which turns the 
range of the Himalayas, opening access, political 
or peaceful, for influence or for commerce, to 
the upper valley of the Yang-tse-kiang, and to the 
western provinces of China proper. By sea, the 
Straits Settlements and Hong-kong on the one 
side, Aden and Egypt on the other, faciliate. 



The Problem of Asia 29 

as far as land positions can, maritime enterprises 
to the eastward or to the westward, directed in 
a broad sense upon the flanks of the dividing 
zone, or upon those of the opposing fronts of 
operations that mark the deployment of the 
northern and southern powers, which at the pres- 
ent time are most strongly established upon 
Asian territory. 

The British and Russian territorial develop- 
ments in Asia, as thus summarized, constitute the 
local bases, upon which depend not merely move- 
ment, peaceful or warlike, if such take place, but 
the impulse to action, defensive or offensive, felt 
by either nation. Were they not where they 
are, much that now engages their attention would 
pass unremarked ; but, being there, there arise 
from the positions exterior opportunities and 
dangers, which neither state should nor can neg- 
lect. It becomes therefore necessary to consider, 
and to summarize, what those dangers and oppor- 
tunities are ; for they constitute the external 
interests, which in the political field correspond 
to the objectives of strategy in the Art of War. 

The first law of states, as of men, is self-preser- 
vation — a term which cannot be narrowed to 
the bare tenure of a stationary round of existence. 



30 The Problem of Asia 

Growth is a property of healthful life, which does 
not, it is true, necessarily imply increase of size 
for nations, any more than it does for individuals, 
with whom bodily, and still more mental, devel- 
opment progresses long after stature has reached 
its limit ; but it does involve the right to insure 
by just means whatsoever contributes to national 
progress, and correlatively to combat injurious 
action taken by an outside agency, if the latter 
overpass its own lawful sphere. When a differ- 
ence between two states can be brought to the test 
of ascertained and defined right, this carries with 
it a strong presumption in favor of submission ; 
but when a matter touches only advantage, not 
qualified by law or by prescription, and the 
question therefore is one of expediency, it is 
justly and profitably considered in the light of 
self-preservation. This includes the right of 
growth, common to both, which is not legal but 
natural, and consequently less capable of precise 
definition. It is a great gain, not only to the 
parties concerned, but to mankind at large, when 
each candidly regards in this Hght the claims of 
an opponent as well as its own, and seeks to 
strike a fair balance by mutual concession or 
impartial arbitration ; but it still remains true 



The Problem of Asia 31 

that in such a transaction governments — and 
even nations — are not principals, but agents, 
having in charge that which is not their own, 
but their trust, for the generation that then 
is and for those which are to follow. Relinquish- 
ment, therefore, and recourse to arbitration, are 
conditioned by the element of trusteeship, and 
cannot be embraced in that spirit of simple self- 
sacrifice which is so admirable in the individual 
man dealing with what is wholly his own. 

It is therefore not enough to direct attention 
to the security, in territorial tenure, of the two 
parties who at the present moment are the princi- 
pal exponents of the contending impulses in Asia. 
There must be considered also the need and right 
to grow, as these may be affected either by their 
own opposing tendencies, or by conditions now 
existing in Asia itself, and localized for the most 
part in the dividing belt of debatable ground. 
Nor can the question be confined to the two 
most prominent disputants. The right to grow, 
of the world in general, and of other states in 
particular, is involved in these Asian problems, 
in the development and utilization of this vast 
tract, so long isolated from a share in the general 
order. 



32 The Problem of Asia 

Growth depends upon two correlative factors ; 
upon vigor of internal organization — which gives 
power to assimilate — and upon freedom of inter- 
change with external sources of support. In the 
family of civilized states, the former is solely 
the concern of the nation itself; intervention 
from without, in the internal order of a commun- 
ity, is generally held to be permissible only when 
its stage of political development corresponds 
to that of childhood or of decay. The matter, 
in fact, is one properly and naturally internal, 
only exceptionally and accidentally one for inter- 
ference from outside. It is quite different with 
freedom of interchange ; for that, depending 
upon conditions external to the country, implies 
necessarily external acquiescence, both of the 
people with whom interchange is had, and of 
those whose interests are involved in the inter- 
vening channels of communication. 

The methods of the British or Russian internal 
administration are therefore outside of such a 
discussion as this, except in so far as they indicate 
the probable effect upon other countries of the 
extension of these methods to territory desired, 
but not yet obtained. This is, indeed, a most 
serious consideration, and one that cannot fail 



The Problem of Asia 33 

to weigh heavily in the determination of policies. 
The ubiquitous tendency to territorial expansion, 
which is so marked a feature in European states 
of the period, results in a corresponding contrac- 
tion of the ground free equally to all ; and, as 
this narrows, there cannot but be increasing jeal- 
ousy of every movement which carries a threat 
of exclusive control, whether by acquisition or 
by predominant influence, especially if the latter 
depend not upon fair commercial struggle in 
open markets, but upon the alien element of 
military or political force. 

Whatever, therefore, may be the commercial 
possibilities involved in the application of modern 
methods to the further development of the coun- 
tries and peoples which lie between the zones of 
British and Russian power in Asia, one single 
interest will be common to all the nations who 
seek by commerce — by interchange — to pro- 
mote their own healthy national growth. Each 
alike will desire that it, individually, have its 
equal chance in the field, unhindered by the 
inimical influence of a foreign power, resting not 
upon fair competition, but upon force, whether 
exerted by open act or by secret pressure. Noth- 
ing is more dreaded, nor will be more resented 

3 



34 The Problem of Asia 

— more productive of quarrel — than such inter- 
position. In the final analysis the question is as 
yet essentially military. Time, much time, will 
be needed for the process of development ; but 
the movement is already in progress through 
which, by the acquisition of new positions, and 
by the consolidation of power both in them and 
in territory already held, advantage will be gained 
for the exercise of control. 

What has just been said applies to all the belt 
lying, roughly, between the thirtieth and fortieth 
parallels, and not to China only, although the 
latter, through her huge area and population, and 
her seeming helplessness, has naturally attracted 
the greater attention. The question also is, for 
the present, quite independent of the aggregate 
results of development, which not impossibly 
may fall very short of the rosy hopes of trade 
suggested by the mere words " four hundred 
millions of people." Those results, being so far 
in the future as to defy exact prediction, affect 
the question much as a variable quantity does a 
mathematical problem — that is, not at all, so 
far as the process of investigation is concerned, 
the effect being shown only when different values 
are assigned to it in the final expression. Be that 



The Problem of Asia 35 

variable quantity — the result of development — 
great or small, its possibilities are great, and as 
such it must be taken into account in discussing 
the political problem of obviating now the chance 
of any exclusive, or unduly preponderant, usu- 
fruct then. 

On this account, in regarding the central zone 
of Asia as a source whence the nations of the 
world, by mutual exchange or benefit, can both 
invigorate their own life and that of the Asiatics, 
it seems quite just and reasonable to discard all 
attempt to estimate by detail how abundant that 
source may prove to be. Even if utilization be 
confined to the labor and capital employed in 
developing internal communications, the mutual 
effect will be great enough to merit considera- 
tion. How much more the future may hold is 
indifferent to the necessary forecast — the short 
view — of the present. The problem, into the 
final solution of which enter all the factors — 
military and naval power, military and naval 
positions, communications external and internal, 
commercial operations and benefits — is less one 
of proportion than of scale ; and the scale will 
depend upon the value of that unknown and 
variable quantity, the potential wealth of the 



36 The Problem of Asia 

countries concerned, when they shall have be- 
come fully developed members of the inter- 
national body. 

The contribution, direct and indirect, which 
these regions may eventually make to the general 
prosperity of the world is the substantial interest 
which is now attracting the attention of the 
nations. From their aim to control or to share 
it, it corresponds to the objective of strategy in 
military operations. Accepting provisionally the 
conclusion just reached as to its present indeter- 
minate value, we have next to consider the ques- 
tion of approaches from without, which in their 
turn answer to the communications that play so 
leading a part in the policy of war. Communi- 
cations that are wholly internal fall into the cate- 
gory of commercial development, except where 
they may form sections of a great, international 
line. 

It will be apparent at once that communica- 
tions — approaches from without — are of two 
chief kinds — by sea and by land. In these 
heads of division they recall the essential differ- 
ences between the two European powers now 
most solidly settled on Asiatic soil. These con- 
current facts — and factors — suggest, what will 



The Problem of Asia 37 

hereafter become increasingly apparent, that we 
have here again a fresh instance of the multiform 
struggle between land power and sea power. 
Consequently, it is not improbable that the 
recognition and constant recollection of this 
perennial contest may serve better than any 
other clew to guide us through this complicated 
inquiry, and to reach an adjustment between the 
two antagonists that can most certainly and most 
easily be maintained. Such an adjustment would 
be one in which the respective aggregates of 
power, whatever its component parts on either 
side, should approach equality, in amount and in 
disposition, while causes of friction should at the 
same time be minimized. If these two conditions 
— the smallest friction, and equality of power — 
be insured, there will follow from them the least 
disposition to break the peace. 

Lines of communication by sea, whatever their 
starting-point and their course, extend as far as 
ships can float and navigate. So far they exist 
independent of man's power, which does not 
determine their existence, but the use of them. 
In copiousness they exceed, irretrievably, the 
utmost possibilities of land travel. This is con- 
sequent, partly, upon the greater obstacles to 



38 The Problem of Asia 

transit imposed by the ground under its most 
favorable conditions, and partly upon the undue 
expense incurred, owing to the same obstacles, in 
attempting by increase of width, or by multiplica- 
tion of tracks, to rival the expanses of water 
routes. As a highway, a railroad competes in 
vain with a river — the greater speed cannot 
compensate for the smaller carriage. Because 
more facile and more copious, water traffic is for 
equal distances much cheaper ; and, because 
cheaper, more useful in general. These dis- 
tinctions are not accidental or temporary ; they 
are of the nature of things, and permanent. 
Only where there is no water communication, 
or when excess of distance by water as compared 
with that by land counterbalances the intrinsic 
advantages of the former, can there be compe- 
tition in cheapness and in generalness of use. It 
is necessary to insist upon these facts ; for the far 
greater speed of the railroad gives a very differ- 
ent impression to the average mind, which is 
prone to forget the limitations in capacity. Traf- 
fic, or exchange of goods, depends in aggregate 
result not upon speed only but upon the amounts 
that can be steadily delivered in long equal 
periods of time. 



The Problem of Asia 39 

These inherent advantages of water communi- 
cations will probably insure their preponderance, 
in exploiting the development of the regions now 
under consideration. But, as has before been 
observed, the existence of sea communications is 
one thing ; the use of them is another. The 
latter depends upon power, and that power 
manifested in two ways, namely, by pure naval 
strength upon the ocean, and by a combination 
— or conflict, it may be — of naval and military 
strength, where the ocean touches or penetrates 
the land. There, where they meet, opposition 
on the score of military power, which underlies 
political power, is of course accentuated, and the 
balance must be determined. Such local deter- 
mination, however, does not affect merely the 
neighborhood in which it is exerted. The 
nature, extent, and decisiveness of territorial con- 
trol, established by power resting upon the sea, 
constitute a centre of political influence, corres- 
ponding to a base of military operations, from 
which are radiated efi'ects which reach far inland, 
and exert a force commensurate in difliision and 
in degree to that of the base from which they 
issue. 

Thus land power is modified by the proximity 



40 The Problem of Asia 

of the sea ; and correspondingly, whenever the 
ocean touches the land, the circumstance at once 
conditions sea power, which no longer represents 
a single factor, but becomes a resultant, depen- 
dent in character upon the contrasted strengths 
of opposing forces. This is seen, in different 
phases and degrees, in the entrances of seaports 
and of navigable rivers ; in the ascent of the 
latter ; in the effect of islands as well as of coast- 
lines upon strategy ; in straits such as Gibral- 
tar, or canals like Suez. In all these cases the 
power of the land to interfere with that of the sea 
is easily obvious. It is seen again, in the most 
extreme form, where an international water route 
is interrupted, as at the Isthmus of Panama, 
by land transit — like the portage between 
two inlands streams — or where, from the close 
approach of the land, such interruption can 
readily be caused. This liability naturally is 
greatest with artificial water routes, of which the 
Suez Canal is the most conspicuous existing ex- 
ample ; but it would receive illustration also in 
the case of a railway from the Mediterranean to 
the Persian Gulf, which undoubtedly will be a 
feature of the future development of Asia. 
Considering the respective prerogatives of the 



The Problem of Asia 41 

land and of the sea, regarded as channels of com- 
munication, and their mutual influence when in 
contact, there can be little doubt that with China, 
as with other countries that enjoy a sea frontier^ 
the latter will be the more fruitful medium of 
promoting commerce — the interchange — where- 
by nations in vigorous life sustain and develop 
their strength through contact with outside 
sources, which, in return, are thus not exhausted, 
but renewed. This general tendency will receive 
special impulse and force from the Yang-tse- 
kiang, which, being navigable by steamers a 
thousand miles from its mouth, extends so far 
the access from the sea to the heart of this great 
valley of China. And as with the country pos- 
sessing the seaboard, so with those whose ap- 
proach to her is through it, and by the sea. 
The greater ease, and therefore the greater co- 
piousness, of the stream of traffic result in a 
corresponding increase in the wealth — the gain 

— which is the concrete expression of the mutual 
benefit. Greater benefit entails greater interest 

— interest in the maintenance and promotion of 
the more favorable conditions ; that is, those who 
are deriving the largest good from the exchange 
■ — from commerce — will be most anxious to 



42 The Problem of Asia 

continue and to develop it, and, as commerce 
thrives by peace and suffers by war, it follows 
that peace is the superior interest of those coun- 
tries which approach by the sea. It is, indeed, a 
reiterated commonplace that the interest of a 
commercial state is peace. Such countries will 
indeed need to support their policy of peace by 
readiness to resort to war if need be ; but locally 
such military preparation as they may have will 
be essentially defensive, not aggressive. This 
results also from another cause ; for, while they 
have the greater interest and the stronger control 
— one approaching, in fact, to decisiveness — 
over the sea communications, their power of 
territorial control cannot directly outweigh that 
of a state whose frontiers are conterminous with 
the region in dispute. It is this limited capacity 
of navies to extend coercive force inland that has 
commended them to the highest political intelli- 
gence, as a military instrument mighty for de- 
fence, but presenting no menace to the liberties 
of a people. 

The distribution of the Russian dominion and 
the concentration of its mass, already alluded to, 
combined with the fact of its irremediable re- 
moteness from an open sea, render inevitable its 



The Problem of Asia 43 

dependence upon land routes for the bulk of its 
intercourse with the debatable ground of Asia. 
Natural conditions are so hopelessly adverse, 
that it is difficult to see what possible political 
extension can seriously modify them. By this is 
meant that, wherever Russia now touches the sea, 
or can shortly touch it, the points are so remote 
from the heart of her territory that access to it 
from them must, after all, be chiefly by land. 
The benefit of sea commerce, therefore, will ex- 
tend from her seaboard only to a distance short 
relatively to the extent of the empire ; while the 
localities immediately benefited are comparatively 
small, and not especially adapted to those forms 
of development which sea commerce promotes. 
They have the further disadvantage that they are 
upon enclosed seas, liable, therefore, to be defi- 
nitively shut by a hostile power — land or sea, 
as the case may be. It is sufficient merely to 
glance at the Dardanelles and the approaches to 
the Baltic to see the force of this remark. 

From these conditions it results that, if the 
comparative advantages and results of land and 
water traffic are as has been stated above, Russia 
is in a disadvantageous position for the accumula- 
tion of wealth ; which is but another way of say- 



44 The Problem of Asia 

ing that she is deficient in means for advancing 
the welfare of her people, of which wealth is at 
once the instrument and the exponent. This 
being so, it is natural and proper that she should 
be dissatisfied, and dissatisfaction readily takes 
the form of aggression — the word most in favor 
with those of us who dislike all forward movement 
in nations. Her tendency necessarily must be to 
advance, and it is already sufficiently pronounced 
to be suggestive of ultimate aims. It would be a 
curious speculation to consider how far the syste- 
matic forward designs often attributed to her, as 
in the rumored will of Peter the Great, simply 
reflect the universal consciousness of her evident 
needs and consequent restlessness. This is 
possibly the largest single element in the horo- 
scope of Asia, and it may be stated thus : Only 
parts of the Russian territory, and those, even in 
the aggregate, small and uninfluential compara- 
tively to the whole, enjoy the benefits of mari- 
time commerce. It is therefore the interest of 
Russia not merely to reach the sea at more 
points, and more independently, but to acquire, 
by possession or by control, the usufruct of 
other and extensive maritime regions, the returns 
from which shall redound to the general pros- 



The Problem of Asia 45 

perity of the entire empire." To this statement 
must necessarily be added the consideration of 
those peculiarities of Russian internal administra- 
tion and general policy, which, after annexation, 
tend to the substantial exclusion of other states 
from much that they have enjoyed prior to Rus- 
sian occupation. 

It is a mistake, and a deplorable mistake, when 
recognizing conditions of conflicting interests, as 
here indicated, to see in them only grounds for 
opposition and hostility. States that are more 
fortunate in the extent of their seaboard, and in 
physical conditions which facilitate the circula- 
tion of the life-blood of trade throughout their 
organization, owe at the least candor, if not 
sympathy, to the fetters under which Russia 
labors in her narrow sea-front, in her vast and 
difficult interior, and in a climate of extreme 
rigor. 

Nevertheless, while such an attitude should be 
observed and maintained, there remains the duty 
to their own people ; and associated with these, 
but dominating both, the moral obligations to 
the populations and to the governments still 
more immediately concerned — those of the 
debatable zone — in changes which seem impend- 



46 The Proble7n of Asia 

ing. We are not in the presence of a simple 
problem, easily decided by reference merely to 
existing rights — natural, prescriptive, or legal — 
or to the firmly established principles of a highly 
developed society of individuals or of nations. 
We are confronted with the imminent dissolution 
of one or more organisms, or with a readjustment 
of their parts, the results of which, should either 
come to pass, will be solid and durable just in 
proportion as the existence and force of natural 
factors either are accurately recognized, or else 
reach an equilibrium by free self-assertion, allow- 
ing each to find its proper place through natural 
selection. Such a struggle, however, as is im- 
plied in the phrase " natural selection," involves 
conflict and suffering that might be avoided, in 
part at least, by the rational process of estimating 
the forces at work, and approximating to the 
natural adjustment by the artificial methods of 
counsel and agreement, which seem somewhat 
more suitable to the present day. 



CHAPTER II 

IN the relation of land power to the future of 
Middle Asia — between the parallels of 
thirty and forty north — natural conditions have 
bestowed upon Russia a pre-eminence which 
approaches exclusiveness. The share of other 
states, where any exists, is incidental ; and with 
one conspicuous exception, which will be in- 
dicated later, is deficient either in numbers, posi- 
tion, or organization. This predominance will 
enable Russia to put forth her strength un- 
opposed, directly, by any other of the same 
nature, in quarters outside of the extreme range 
that can with any probability be predicated of sea 
power. But where immediate opposition is not 
feasible, adequate restraint is frequently imposed 
by force exerted, or capable of exertion, in other 
quarters, by land or by sea — dependent, as all 
force is, partly upon its own intrinsic value and 
partly upon positions occupied. Such pres- 
sure is possible, more or less, in all conditions 



48 The Problem of Asia 

of life, where interests are extensive, various, or 
scattered. It is notably so in international life, 
where action in one quarter is continually hin- 
dered by the consciousness of weakness else- 
where. Brought into action for military ends, 
this means of constraint is known technically as 
" diversion." 

To distraction and enfeeblement of this kind, 
should cause be given by the pursuance of a 
policy too selfishly exclusive, Russia is particu- 
larly liable, from her vast extent, inadequate 
internal communications, the number and power 
of the nations whose interests will suffer from 
such exclusion, and from the very favorable 
positions occupied by them for action that falls 
under the general head of diversion. The facility 
for this is the greater because the positions thus 
occupied, or open to occupation upon advan- 
tageous terms, are upon the Russian flanks, and, 
other things approaching equality, pressure or 
attack of a given amount upon a flank is applied 
to greater effect than upon the centre of a line, 
for the simple reason that each flank is more 
remote from the other than the centre is from 
either; concentration of effort, offensive or defen- 
sive, therefore, is more easily practised between 



The Problem of Asia 49 

the centre and a flank than between the flanks 
themselves. So many and great, indeed, are the 
opportunities of opposing states, due to position 
and strength, that, after all allowance made for 
the feebleness of alliances, or rather of co-opera- 
tion, when compared with force concentrated in a 
single hand, it may still be believed that in 
potentiality the land and sea powers approach 
that condition of equilibrium which has been 
mentioned as one of the two factors that will tend 
to promote a peaceful and durable solution of the 
problem of Asia. 

Unhappily the other factor, freedom from 
friction, is now conspicuous chiefly by its absence. 
Without attempting to pronounce upon the 
reasonableness of the feeling, it may safely be 
said that uneasiness, which is the mental equiva- 
lent of friction, is now notoriously prevalent in 
the councils of nations. In order that the worst 
result of such uneasiness — war — may be timely 
and effectually averted, a general appreciation of 
the conditions, and of the attitude necessary to 
be taken, is indispensable. Failing that, nations 
drift. Through ignorance of their strength and 
of their weakness, of the strength and weakness 
of those opposed to them, and of the elements in 



50 The Problem of Asia 

which strength or weakness consists, states and 
governments hesitate to act when action is op- 
portune, are hasty when time is not ripe. In 
either case they act amiss, and incur danger, less 
or more ; whereas, when thoroughly aroused to 
facts as they actually are, to the possibilities which 
they contain, and attentive to the preparations 
which circumstances demand, the common readi- 
ness and resulting mutual respect promote a 
measuredness and precision of action that more 
than aught else tend to preserve peace, by fore- 
stalling the occurrence of situations whence there 
is no escape but by war. It is doubtless this 
appreciation of relative powers and positions, 
joined to care so to maintain their own as to 
render a conflict arduous, even if not of uncer- 
tain issue, that now most effectually preserves 
peace among the states of Europe. 

In like manner the nations closely concerned 
in the future of Asia — using the name in the 
broad sense that shall cover the entire continent — 
will most surely reach a solution of peace by a 
rational valuation of present advantages and dis- 
advantages, of the interests at stake, and of the 
combinations possible, in the East ; and then by 
making provision, corresponding to their necessi- 



The Problem, of Asia 51 

ties and resources, and to their numbers and 
positions, as shown by these calculations. Thus 
will result an adjustment of power answering to 
the facts of the case, and a mutual understanding, 
tacit rather than expressed : conditions which are 
the logical opposites of friction and uneasiness, 
and which, as they already do in Europe itself, 
will avert war and preserve a healthy balance of 
control in these remote scenes of conflicting as- 
pirations. Similarly, in this our study, having 
estimated the opportunities and drawbacks in- 
herent in the position of Russia, we have next to 
consider those of the states which would naturally 
operate as checks upon her too exclusive pre- 
dominance. In doing this, incidental account of 
course must be taken, not only of natural con- 
ditions, but of the artificial combinations, or 
alliances, which notoriously exist. The wisdom 
of the latter, as corresponding to a real national 
interest, is not here in question ; with such facts 
we have to deal simply as they are. 

Among the means of successful diversion 
which natural conditions put in the hands of sea 
power, the control of commerce is probably the 
most decisive. It corresponds to, and counter- 
balances, that exclusiveness of command which 



52 The Problem of Asia 

land power has over the interior of countries 
inaccessible to navigation ; nor is there, upon the 
face of the deep, the home and realm of sea 
power, any other equivalent compensation for this 
exclusion from the land. In itself the sea is a 
barren tenure ; only as the great common, the 
highway of commerce, the seat of communica- 
tions, does it possess unique character and value. 
The concrete expression of this singular impor- 
tance of the sea is the merchandise in transit, the 
increment from which constitutes the material 
prosperity of nations. Surrender control of that, 
and the empire of the sea is like unto Samson 
shorn of his hair. It becomes the sea powers, 
therefore, in view of the solidarity of their interest 
in the approaching future, to consider seriously 
how far they will yield to the cry, now increas- 
ingly popular, for loosing the hold which, when 
belligerents, they have heretofore had over com- 
merce in its broader sense. In view of the 
limitation of their means, otherwise, for enforcing 
their necessary policy, they should at least delay, 
and maturely weigh the general question, before, 
in deference to supposed particular advantage, 
they pledge themselves antecedently to the 
greater immunities now clamorously demanded. 



The Problem of Asia 53 

Time should be taken before signing away pre- 
rogatives sanctioned by long prescription, such as 
the seizure of so-called private property, em- 
barked on mercantile venture: the claim of which 
to the title "private" is open to grave challenge. 
The acceptance of precise definitions upon a 
subject essentially so variable in its character as 
contraband of war is also to be deprecated ; nor 
would it be amiss, while thus studying the whole 
subject, to review, in the light of the probable 
future, the concession that, on the sea, enemy's 
goods are covered by the neutral flag — a maxim 
which the eminent Liberal statesman Charles 
Fox said was " neither good law nor good 
sense." The empire of the sea is doubtless 
the empire of the world ; doubtless also its 
sceptre can be abdicated; but is it wise to do 
so? 

Merchandize belonging to private individuals, 
but in transit to other countries for commercial 
exchange, is not " private " property in the ordi- 
nary sense of the word. It is a commonplace 
that money is the sinews of war. When em- 
barked in foreign trade, the merchandize of indi- 
vidual citizens is engaged in making money for 
the state ; it plays a most important part in the 



54 The Problem of Asia 

circulation of the life-blood throughout the or- 
ganization of the belligerent country. It differs 
essentially from internal trade. The latter, com- 
ing from and returning to the nation itself, ex- 
cluding other states in its course, resembles 
merely the functional activities of the animal 
body, which distribute to the various parts only 
that which the body already possesses. The 
body does not — cannot — live off itself; it 
simply assimilates and distributes that which it 
receives from outside, and this indispensable ex- 
ternal nutriment corresponds to external com- 
merce in the body political and economical, 
drawing support to the state from outside 
sources. From these sources, maritime com- 
merce is the great channel of communication ; 
hence its supreme importance to the support of 
war. To interrupt internal trade produces de- 
rangement of functional processes, which may 
conduce to the end of a war, or may not. If it 
does not so conduce, it stands condemned as 
causing useless suffering. As to the stoppage of 
external commerce, by capturing the so-called 
"private" property embarked, there can be no 
doubt about the effect. It conduces directly to 
the ends of war by producing a bloodless ex- 



The Problem of Asia 55 

haustion, compelling submission, and that at the 
least expense of life and suffering. 

It has been said that, viewing Russia as a 
whole, relatively to the middle zone of Asia, 
her advance has been, and promises still to 
be, by the flanks rather than by the centre. 
Such certainly are the present tendencies and 
indications. It is upon the flanks also, and 
upon the flanks chiefly, that opposition can 
be effectually made; but such opposition will be 
of the most forcible character, not only on 
account of the advantage already stated, inherent 
to flank attacks generally, but because it will be 
upon the line of the sea frontier — the seaboard 
— and accordingly upon the access to the sea, 
with which the interior, for its best welfare, 
requires untrammelled communication. It will 
be also in the hands of powers which, by the 
nature of their strength, and by their local posi- 
tions in Asia, are essentially powers of the sea. 

Let us, then, examine the conditions upon the 
flanks : first, as involving objects of interest — 
objectives of policy — control of which may be 
coveted ; and secondly, with reference to the 
positions — the local tenure — of the states which 
may be aiming there to exert influence, whether 



56 The Problem of Asia 

for advance or for its prevention, and to their 
intrinsic strength for such purposes. 

Accepting the estimates already made of Rus- 
sia's position and necessary aims, her interests 
may be condensed into access to the sea as exten- 
sive and as free as possible : on the east by the 
Chinese seaboard ; on the west in two directions, 
viz., to the Persian Gulf, by way of Persia, 
and to the Mediterranean, from the Black Sea, 
or through Asia Minor. Such plans are dedu- 
cible, not from knowledge of the councils of 
the Russian government, but from the history 
of the recent past, and from the clear natural 
conditions indicating the lines which offer least 
resistance to forward movement, whether in the 
physical obstacles to be overcome, or in the 
opposition of the populations. It is allowable to 
add to these conjectured projects the common 
surmise of Russian design upon India. This, if 
entertained, would be an advance by the centre 
rather than by a flank ; but even here a study of 
the map would seem to show that progress 
through Persia would not only approach the gulf, 
but if successful would turn — would outflank — 
the mountains of Afghanistan, avoiding the diffi- 
culties presented by the severe features of that 



The Problem of Asia 57 

country and by the character of its inhabitants. 
Russia would thus obtain a better position, both 
in itself and in its communication with the north, 
for beginning and sustaining operations in India 
itself 

Such movements as here supposed on the part 
of Russia, upon the two flanks, might politically 
affect the interests of other states in a manner to 
arouse decided and reasonable antagonism ; for 
exerting which they have formidable facilities, by 
position and otherwise. These advantages, how- 
ever, rest ultimately upon the sea, and conse- 
quently they will not, unless carefully improved, 
outweigh — or even equal — the predominance 
by land which Russia has, owing to her territorial 
nearness and other conditions already mentioned. 
Moreover, as contrasted with the political unity 
of Russia and her geographical continuity, the 
influences that can possibly be opposed to her are 
diverse and scattered. They find, however, a 
certain unifying motive in a common interest, of 
unfettered commerce and of transit in the regions 
in question. It is upon the realization of this 
interest, and upon the accurate appreciation of 
their power to protect it — and not upon artificial 
combinations — that correct policy or successful 



58 The Problem of Asia 

concert in the future must rest. Effective co- 
operation between nations depends upon the 
necessity imposed by a common interest; the 
more clear and general, therefore, the understand- 
ing of the interest and of attendant conditions, 
the more certain and abiding the co-operation. 

The regions whose political and social future is 
in doubt, and to be determined possibly by the 
relative effect exerted upon their inhabitants by 
the contrasting powers of the land and of the sea, 
in the struggle of these to influence commercial 
conditions, constitute the objectives of policy. 
They are, on the east, the Chinese Empire, and 
more particularly China proper ; on the west, Tur- 
key in Asia and Persia. The latter two are con- 
terminous, the line of division being marked by a 
lofty but not impracticable mountain chain, extend- 
ing to the southeast from the ranges. of Armenia 
nearly to the Persian Gulf Being substantially 
devoid of railroads, this tract is commercially 
backward, judged by modern standards. Its area, 
omitting Arabia, is about a million square miles, 
distributed between two lines, roughly parallel, 
indicated on the south by the Mediterranean and 
the Persian Gulf, on the north by the Black and 
Caspian seas. The breadth thus bounded is 



The Problem of Asia 59 

about five hundred miles — one-half the distance 
from New York to Chicago. The interior is 
susceptible of great development, and, specifi- 
cally, it offers opportunity for railroad communi- 
cation from the Mediterranean to the head of the 
Persian Gulf, branching through Persia to the 
borders of India. From such a trunk line once 
in operation, lateral extensions would of course 
follow as improvements increase. 

The question of dealing with countries such as 
these and China, in which governments and 
peoples alike are content to be stationary, neither 
knowing nor desiring progress, is so troublesome 
that it will be postponed until the day when the 
outside more advanced civilization has need of 
them ; or until, as now with China, the future 
need is emphasized by a present consciousness of 
its imminence, and by a movement, more or less 
general, to obtain positions that can be utilized 
for control or influence. Whatever the nature 
of such influences, be they most contrary one to 
another, they have always this in common : they 
need some circumstance of advantage, in the 
possession of visible power and position, which 
alone the native occupants understand as a motive 
for concession. According as the relative im- 



6o The Problem of Asia 

pulses from the north and from the south com- 
pare in unmistakable force, so will they prevail. 
There can be, of course, no question of dispos- 
sessing the present inhabitants, that being neither 
practicable nor desirable. The rational object 
can only be to induce them to place themselves 
under such conditions as shall contribute to their 
regeneration, to their own benefit and that of the 
world at large. Whether this shall be effected 
by a gradual assumption of rule, as in India, or by 
actuating the government in nominal possession, 
as now in Egypt, is a matter of detail concerning 
which prediction is impossible. Results in such 
cases are matters less of formal preordainment 
than of growth — of evolution — stage by stage. 
In the past the history of such changes has 
commonly been that private commercial enter- 
prise leads the way, and that the incapacity of the 
local government permits the occurrence of abuses, 
which necessitate the interference of a foreign 
state to protect the rights of its citizens. Inter- 
ference cannot be confined to mere remedy of the 
past and engagements for the future, but seeks 
prevention by guarantees, usually of such a de- 
scription as to confer a certain degree of local 
rule. This, in turn, partaking of the vitality of its 



The Problem of Asia 6i 

mother-country, tends to grow, as all life does. 
The seed, having been sown, germinates and 
thrives after its manner, which is not the manner 
of the soil ; but, once planted, it is ineradicable. 
Whether it overspreads the land depends not upon 
the native resistance, but upon its meeting counter- 
acting influence of a nature essentially akin to its 
own. 

This process is in India a matter of past history, 
which had its crisis in the days when Clive and 
Dupleix represented the rival alien influences of 
Great Britain and of France ; but it has received 
various illustrations in our own time. In Egypt 
its evolution is but lately complete, and there, as 
in India, quite contrary to what may have at first 
been expected, has resulted in the dominance of 
a single state. In China it has begun, and is still 
in progress. There it presents as yet only the 
competition of several nations ; it remains to be 
seen whether, as has been the case in India and 
in Egypt, this condition will be radically modified 
by some sudden unanticipated event. That Asia 
Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia will 
remain indefinitely strangers to experience of a 
like nature, is not to be imagined. There is no 
reason why they should, and there are very evi- 



62 The Problem, of Asia 

dent conditions which indicate that, although 
postponed, the first step is sure to be taken and 
the consequences sure to follow, although we can- 
not now foretell the time of the beginning nor the 
character of the issue. 

Whatever the stage reached in a particular case, 
the general phenomenon has received sufficient 
demonstration to be accepted as a fact, in the 
light of which it becomes advisable to study the 
present, and to provide that the future should be 
less accidental than the past. This study can 
begin and rest upon the two generalizations 
already made : first, that the scenes of present 
movements are upon the two flanks of the same 
long line, the continuity of which is emphasized 
by the extension of Russian territory ; and, sec- 
ond, that, from the obvious conditions, the strug- 
gle as arrayed will be between land power and 
sea power. The recognition that these two are 
the primary contestants does not ignore the cir- 
cumstance that neither is a pure factor, but that 
each side will need and will avail itself, in degree, 
of the services of the other element ; that is, the 
land power will try to reach the sea and to utilize 
it for its own ends, while the sea power must 
obtain support on land, through the motives it 



The Probletn of Asia 63 

can bring to bear upon the inhabitants. To the 
second of these generahzations there is one con- 
spicuous artificial exception. France, which on 
the immediate scene of interest is naturally a sea 
power, becomes by her formal and essentially 
subsidiary alliance with Russia an element of the 
land power in relation to the East. Other than 
that, the proclivities of the states concerned follow 
their natural interests — a condition which, by its 
greater healthfulness, promises a longer endur- 
ance. Hence ensues solidarity of interest between 
Germany, Great Britain, Japan, and the United 
States, which bids fair to be more than momen- 
tary, because the conditions seem to be relatively 
permanent. 

Let us consider and state the conditions ; for, 
taken together with those of Russia, they consti- 
tute the military, and therefore the political, 
situation on the flanks. Three of these states 
are preponderantly maritime, and in the matter 
of military force decisively naval. Germany is 
different ; yet her commercial growth of late 
years places her necessarily on the side of those 
who wish commerce in these undeveloped regions 
to be unfettered. In common with the others, 
she must seek to provide against an exclusive 



64 The Problem of Asia 

control there, because she cannot expect such 
to fall to her. That she already seeks such pro- 
vision is known, by the large additions proposed 
to her navy. We may assume, therefore, that in 
China, should necessity arise, the four states 
would be found following a common line of 
action, dependent upon naval force. Such force 
would find its bases near at hand, and yet, by 
simple naval predominance, adequately shielded 
from land attack — with the exception of Ger- 
many, which at Kiaochau is more vulnerable. 
Japan is protected by her strictly insular position, 
and Hong-kong by remoteness from the centres 
of possibly hostile land power. In the possession 
of the Philippines, the United States has — we 
may almost say forced upon her — a base simi- 
larly secure. 

These conditions insure control of the sea to 
their navies, as now constituted. The power of 
the four states, if alive to the necessities of the 
case, outweighs in bases and in ships, in passive 
and in active force, in foundation and in super- 
structure, the naval possibilities of Russia and of 
France. But this pure sea power receives aid 
from land conditions. Upon one flank of the 
Russian line lies the army of Japan ; upon the 



The Problem of Asia 65 

other, five thousand miles away, that of Germany. 
The latter consideration, by its bearing upon the 
problem of Asia, illustrates the direct interest of 
the United States in the continued vigor of a 
European nation. The two extremes of the 
Russian line, thus open to attack, are most in- 
adequately connected by rail. The Philippines 
and Hong-kong lie similarly upon the eastern 
flank of the general position, separated from it 
only by water distances which are comparatively 
short and absolutely safe. To these supports, 
and to the facilities for action by land power, is 
to :be added the long access for sea power into 
the interior afforded by the Yang-tse-kiang. 
Battle-ships can ascend as far as Nanking, 230 
miles from the sea, and vessels of very consider- 
able fighting power to Han-kow, 400 miles 
farther. Steamers of a kind much employed 
in the American civil war can go to Ichang, a 
thousand miles from the river's mouth. 

A military situation is also a political condi- 
tion, the right understanding of which conduces 
to peace. Advantages such as the above, coupled 
with a reasonable certainty that there is no pur- 
pose to use them for political aggression — how- 
ever actively they may be employed for the 

S 



66 The Problem of Asia 

offensive in case war unhappily arises — ■ tend to 
prevent attempts to obtain commercial monopoly 
through military force. There is, however, one 
very weak element in the position of the sea 
powers, and that is the location of the Chinese 
capital. Because of the nature of their force, 
inadequate of itself to local territorial expansion, 
their aim must be to develop China through the 
Chinese, to invigorate and to inspire, rather than 
to supersede, the existing authority. It is to be 
wished, therefore, that the seat of government, 
despite the force of tradition, could be shifted to 
the Yang-tse-kiang, throwing itself frankly upon 
the river, as the core round which to develop a 
renewed China. Unless this be done, and in 
case the Peking authorities yield, as is the custom 
of Orientals, to the nearest strong pressure, it can 
hardly fail that a rival and opponent rule should 
gradually arise in the valley of the Yang-tse. 
The feebleness of the central government lends 
itself to such a revolution, which would be only 
a further development of the local independence 
already found. It may perhaps be for the wel- 
fare of humanity that the Chinese people and 
territory should undergo a period of political 
division, like that of Germany anterior to the 



The Problem of Asia 67 

French Revolution, before achieving the race 
patriotism which, in our epoch, is tending to bind 
peoples into larger groups than the existing 
nationalities. The issue is one that passes hu- 
man foreordainment ; but the contemplation of 
the two alternatives is not amiss to the prepara- 
tion of the statesman. 

From our summary it seems evident that the 
four maritime states named can, by their positions 
on the eastern side of Asia, seriously impede 
advance from the north. On the western flank, 
embracing Persia and Asiatic Turkey, with the 
Levant Basin of the Mediterranean, conditions 
are less clear. The centre of the Russian 
strength is nearer, the sea power of France more 
at hand to support the Russian navy of the 
Black Sea — circumstances which favor a local 
predominance that for centuries has been, and 
still is, a leading ambition of France. As an 
offset, the engagements of Italy in the present 
state of international alliances, and her national 
sympathy, based upon evident interest, should 
prompt her active support to any combination 
the natural tendency of which shall be to insure 
the balance of power in the Mediterranean, and the 
consequent free use of the Suez Canal. The 



68 The Problem of Asia 

conspicuous political sagacity of her people can- 
not fail to realize that her geographical position, 
close to Malta and central as regards the Medi- 
terranean Basin, enables her, by means of her 
powerful navy, to be a factor of decisive import- 
ance in this field, the most influential and yet 
most precarious link in the chain of European 
communications with the farther East. Neither 
immediate interest nor local circumstances of 
advantage justify either Japan or the United 
States in expending here any part of the energies 
they require for more pressing duties ; and the 
people of the latter would certainly be loath, 
probably to the point of refusal, to help per- 
petuate the abused power of the Sultan — the 
more so because their traditional friendship for 
Russia can be alienated only by the latter pro- 
moting a policy distinctly hostile to their interests. 
Yet, while this is so, Americans must accept and 
familiarize their minds to the fact that, with their 
irrevocable entry into the world's polity, first by 
the assertion of the Monroe doctrine, and since 
by their insular acquisitions — above all, the 
Philippines — and by the interests at stake in 
China, they cannot divest themselves of concern, 
practical as well as speculative, in such a question 



The Proble^it of Asia 69 

as the balance of power in the Levant, or at the 
entrance of the Persian Gulf In predominance 
in those quarters is involved, for the present at 
least, control of the shortest way from our 
Atlantic coast to our new possessions — that by 
way of the Red Sea ; but still more is this road 
valuable to Great Britain and to Germany, whose 
policy in China is naturally in accord with, and 
therefore should be a support to our own. Con- 
sequently, what affects them in the one region 
necessarily affects us in the other. 

The question of Persia and Asia Minor, 
regarded from the point of view of our study, 
concerns the safety of the shortest connection of 
our natural supporters with the point of interest 
common to us and to them. It is not their only 
route, and in so far its importance is lessened. 
Its value to them also suffers diminution, in the 
opinion of many, from the hazardous nature of 
the voyage in time of war, through the narrow 
waters of the Mediterranean, the yet more con- 
tracted Red Sea, and with the very vulnerable 
link between them, the Suez Canal. When to 
this is added the length of the Mediterranean — 
2000 miles from Gibraltar to Suez — and the 
presence of the French navy, strongly based on 



70 The Problem of Asia 

the northern and southern coasts, it is not re- 
markable that a representative school of thought 
in Great Britain favors the frank relinquishment 
of so dangerous a course, and regards the canal 
simply as a convenience of peace. Yet while 
present political tenures continue, and still more 
if they are strengthened and developed on exist- 
ing lines, it should be possible to reduce the 
perils of this transit, as expressed above, to a 
degree that would cast the balance in its favor, at 
least as an interior line for strictly military pur- 
poses, and against the greater security, but also 
much greater length, of the voyage around the 
Cape of Good Hope. 

It is evident, however, that while such military 
security, if realized, depends primarily upon naval 
force, that force must rest for its foundation, its 
base, upon a reasonably secure territorial prepon- 
derance in the eastern Mediterranean, the great 
strategic centre of the route ; upon a political 
condition there which shall assure, not a mere 
outpost like Gibraltar and Malta, but the sup- 
port of an extensive population attached by ties 
of interest. The nucleus of such a combination 
already exists in the British occupation of Egypt, 
which, as before remarked concerning India, — 



The Problem of Asia 71 

and the same is true of the Philippines, — not 
only confers an advantage, but entails an impulse 
to action. Be the insecurity of the canal route 
what it may, the work of Great Britain in Egypt 
carries an obligation to insure its continuance 
despite a state of war ; and the effort necessary 
to secure Egypt will secure the canal, except 
against momentary closure by the premeditated 
sinking of a vessel. It is hardly to be supposed, 
however, that such a mishap cannot be avoided 
by a rigorous military control of vessels in transit, 
and of the pilotage, which will prevent sinking in 
mid-channel. Moreover, even if the canal be 
choked, the way remains far the shortest, in 
time, for military purposes, requiring only the 
transfer of troops or munitions of war across the 
narrow neck of land. 

Under conditions of war, the continuance of 
Egypt in its present tenure, and the security of 
the shortest route to the East, both depend ulti- 
mately upon the permanent political bias of the 
region now called Turkey in Asia, and in a sub- 
sidiary degree upon that of Persia. That this is 
so will readily appear if we imagine that, instead 
of the existing misrule, Turkey in Asia — Asia 
Minor, Syria, and Mesopotamia — formed a 



72 The Problem of Asia 

highly developed modern state, with an efficiently 
organized army and navy. Nothing can be said 
now of the power of France in the western half 
of the Mediterranean that would not be as true, 
and truer, of the control of such a state over 
much greater issues. In its presence, if hostile, 
Egypt would be insecure, as she was in the days 
of the Ottoman vigor ; and the strategic import- 
ance of Egypt's position is a commonplace of 
the ages. This imagined state, touching the 
Black Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, 
and the Levant, would control the issues from 
vast territories to the outer world. It does 
not now exist ; but the creation of such a polit- 
ical entity, and its development on healthy 
lines, are as much one of the problems of Asia, 
and as important, as China itself. The latter is 
primarily and chiefly a region simply of produc- 
tion ; the other, while not barren in this aspect, 
would fulfil the far more vital role of controlling 
communications. In superiority of interest to 
the world at large, therefore, it far excels. 

In order to constitute here a political condition 
susceptible of durable progress, in place of the 
present impotent misrule, a process of develop- 
ment must begin from without ; for it is suffi- 



The Problem of Asia 73 

ciently demonstrated that there is no internal 
source of regeneration under the actual tenure. 
Whatever shall happen, the existing populations 
must remain ; but the fate of the government, be 
that near or remote, will depend upon its faculty 
of accommodation to the dominant, though alien, 
pressure. During the stages of advance, through 
military organization and economical administra- 
tion, both comformable to the genius of the out- 
side force, be that Russian or Western, the fleet 
that there finds its territorial base of action will 
continue to be, not native, but that of the exter- 
nal power ; for a navy is the most delicate, most 
specialized form of military institutions, and 
hence the latest to mature into independent life. 
Nevertheless, during the period of tutelage, the 
result upon the maritime strategic field will be 
the same as though the naval organization, as 
well as the military, were composed of the inhabi- 
tants themselves. Both embodying the genius 
of the educating power, the combination of the 
two will control in her interest this central posi- 
tion of the world. 

It is clear, indeed, that here and in China, as 
well as in Egypt, and wherever a numerous 
population already exists, the regeneration pre- 



74 The Problem of Asia 

cursory to full attainment of civilization must 
proceed through, and by, the inhabitants already 
in possession of the soil. Concerning this there 
can be, and should be, no dispute. It appears 
little less certain that these now have not, either 
in themselves or in their existing governments, 
the power to begin and to continue the necessary 
reformation. The question therefore is, under 
what impulse, under the genius of what race or 
of what institutions, is the movement to arise and 
to progress ? The determination of the answer 
depends upon a struggle, peaceful or otherwise, 
between the external powers, — a conflict inevit- 
able, irrepressible, because of their opposing 
political institutions, themselves the expression 
of the yet more vital force of contrasted national 
characters. Whatever the scene or the nature of 
the contest, whether it be decided upon the 
debatable ground itself or exterior to it, upon 
land or upon sea, by peaceful competition or by 
the arbitration of war, the issue depends upon a 
balance of force. That it is impossible of pre- 
diction is no reason for abandoning an attempt to 
appreciate the conditions. Quite the contrary ; 
for, be the result what it may, there will enter 
into its determination not merely blind force, of 



The Problem, of Asm 75 

numbers or of position, but intelligent direction 
as well, which shall be guided step by step, as 
emergency succeeds emergency, by informed under- 
standing of the importance and character of the 
elements of the problem, and by a forecast — a 
long view — of the ends to be desired. This 
will be the more necessary on the part of the sea 
powers if they have the common interest that has 
been asserted ; for, not being under a single head, 
community of action, without which they will be 
powerless, can proceed only from an accord based 
upon accurate comprehension of the issues at 
§take. 

It must be observed that there is not in 
Levantine Turkey any free waterway, such as in 
China is given by the Yang-tse-kiang, opening a 
constant, ready access to the interior from the 
sea, although a certain analogy thereto is pre- 
sented by the re-entrant angle formed by the 
coasts of Syria and Karamania, nigh to the apex 
of which lies the British island of Cyprus. The 
development of the interior, upon which alone is 
to be based that influence upon the inhabitants 
which shall bring them as a factor into the sphere 
of international relations, must be by land com- 
munications — by railroad — the main line of 



76 The Problem of Asia 

which, in the absence of watercourses navigable 
by large ships, will here form the core, around 
and from which the influences of civilization will 
grow. Failing immediate direct action by foreign 
governments, such development will fall to pri- 
vate enterprise, and will in its beginnings natu- 
rally follow the lines of least resistance and great- 
est advantage, which will be in the comparatively 
easy country that lies between and gives access to 
two seas — the Mediterranean and the Persian 
Gulf. Whatever the particular direction of such 
a road — which will depend chiefly upon local 
considerations — it must at once assume political, 
and therefore strategic, importance. This fact 
will probably induce a certain rivalry — based 
upon military as well as commercial reasons — to 
obtain the concession for building. 

The recognition of a community of interest in 
the general question of Asia, as depending upon 
land and upon sea power, should influence those 
who possess the latter to guard sedulously against 
permitting this rivalry to degenerate into antag- 
onism. This, if done, would illustrate conspic- 
uously the healthful effect of broad general views 
upon immediate particular action. The nation 
that lays and administers such a road will, if 



The Problem of Asia 77 

politically discreet, affect the surrounding country 
by the daily evidences of benefit, conferred and to 
be expected ; and thus, step by step, promoting 
organization and improvement, will secure that 
firm mass of territorial support which, when 
united to a sea power otherwise preponderant, 
will determine control. It is almost needless to 
say that the raw material of military power is in 
these regions abundant and good. 

The considerations heretofore presented show 
the conditions and the possibilities upon the two 
extremities, or flanks, of that middle zone of Asia 
which is defined broadly by the thirtieth and 
fortieth parallels of north latitude. From them 
it may be inferred, concisely, that while the 
eastern regions — China and its dependencies — 
are of more immediate commercial concern to the 
rest of the world, and the decision of their future 
more imminent, those upon the west, finding 
their centre about the Levant and Suez, possess 
far greater military and ultimate importance, 
because they affect the question of communica- 
tions between Europe, India, and China; not to 
speak of Australia, which also is therein in- 
terested, though less exclusively dependent. 
Unless Great Britain and Germany are prepared 



•j^ The Problem of Asia 

to have the Suez route to India and the Far 
East closed to them in time of war, they cannot 
afford to see the borders of the Levant and the 
Persian Gulf become the territorial base for the 
navy of a possible enemy, especially if it appear 
that the policy of the latter in the Pacific runs 
seriously counter to their own. From Gibraltar 
to India the Suez route is throughout compara- 
tively narrow, and therefore stations which flank 
it — as Gibraltar, Algiers, Toulon, Malta, Aden, 
and the Persian Gulf — can more effectively exert 
control, because their comparative nearness can- 
not be overcome by a circuitous course. In the 
western basin of the Mediterranean such control, 
so far as dependent upon positions, irrespective 
of mobile force in ships — a most important 
qualification — is at present in the hands of 
France ; but once past Sicily and Malta, the 
maritime situation changes with the geographical 
and political distribution. There is there no 
local dominant naval state, and the existence of 
such depends upon the political future of Asiatic 
Turkey and Persia. 

It will be objected that for Great Britain and 
Germany to maintain their fleets in the Levant, 
dependent for re-enforcement and supply upon 



The Problem of Asia 79' 

the home countries, is to occupy a position the 
communications of which, on account of the 
exposed stretch from Gibraltar to Malta, are 
unendurably defective, as the strength of a chain 
is that of its weakest link. The objection is 
perfectly sound, though not necessarily decisive 
even under present conditions, but it only makes 
clearer the need of a more solid territorial estab- 
lishment in the Levant ; one which, through the 
development of Asiatic Turkey, could afford a 
local self-sufficing base of naval operations. For, 
after all, nothing, not the sanding-up of the canal 
itself, can change the natural conditions which 
make Egypt the strategic centre of the chief 
highway between the East and West. It ap- 
proached this even in the days of sailing-ships, as 
Nelson and Napoleon then recognized. Steam 
has made it so decisively ; and before the canal 
was dug, travel had reverted to this route. In 
these days of big nations, Egypt, from its com- 
paratively restricted habitable area, must remain 
the appendage of some greater state. Of which ? 
Is it not apparent that the nearer at hand the 
stronger the tenure, because more susceptible of 
consolidation ? As positions now are, British 
power territorially consolidated in the Levant, 



8o The Problem of Asia 

and with a preponderant fleet, can dominate the 
entire Mediterranean ; for this, after all, is a 
small sea, which a superior fleet centrally placed 
can control to the full extent of security, as 
security is understood in war, and without diffi- 
culties exceeding those common to all military 
operations. Such a fleet would require simply to 
be able to receive harbor support at either end 
of the sea ; for, while it must be able in case of 
urgency to go to either Gibraltar or Suez, with 
the certainty of finding needed supplies on the 
spot, it is not necessary to the protection of either 
that it be locally present. Nelson at Sicily and 
at Naples covered Sidney Smith before Acre and 
Alexandria. Granted a secure base of supplies 
in the Levant, Italy — too little considered in 
the question of the East — and Malta have the 
power, so far as position goes, to. dominate the 
Mediterranean from east to west. 

Not only is Great Britian for her own credit 
bound to hold Egypt, but the central position of 
the latter with reference to the whole Eastern 
world is such that, even under present drawbacks, 
it is hard to conceive any conditions in which 
supplies can fail to pour in from several quarters. 
In military situation, Egypt approaches an ideal ; 



The Problem of Asia 8i 

for to a local concentration of force, defensive 
and offensive, operative in two directions, towards 
Gibraltar or towards India, it adds several streams 
of supply, so diverse in origin that no one navy 
can take position to intercept them all. Reduced 
to the fewest, they flow in by two channels, the 
Red Sea and the Mediterranean : how shall any 
one fleet close both? If the Mediterranean be 
blocked, the Red Sea remains, always the shortest 
route for India, Australia, and the Cape, to aid 
to the full extent of their resources, the sole 
essential being to provide that their resources be 
adequate. In the same case. Great Britain her- 
self has the Cape route. If this be thought over- 
long, all the more reason not to abandon that of 
Suez antecedent to necessity arising. Does some 
temporary cause, disaster or other, make the fleet 
itself temporarily inferior ? What retreat surer 
than that of passing the canal from the Mediter- 
ranean to the Red Sea, or the reverse ? As for 
permanent naval inferiority, be it incurred at 
any time or any place, it means, of course, 
the collapse of British resistance. 

In short, submitted to strict military analysis, 
it would appear that the proposition to abandon 
the Mediterranean and the Suez route, in favor 

6 



82 The Problem of Asia 

of the Cape, is a strategic policy defensive rather 
than offensive, and proceeds from the assump- 
tion — probably not recognized — that in some 
way " war," to use Napoleon's jibe, " can be 
made without running risks." The truer solution 
for a state already holding Malta and Gibraltar 
would seem to be to grasp Egypt firmly, to 
consolidate local tenure there, and to establish 
in India, Australia, and the Cape sources of 
necessary supply, — whether manufactories or 
depots, — in ammunition and stores, against the 
chance of temporary interruption on the side of 
England. If this be true under conditions of 
isolation, it is yet more true at a period when the 
interests of both Italy and Germany coincide 
in general direction with those of Great Britain. 

Whatever decisions may be reached as to 
practical expediency, based upon th^ limitations 
of a nation's power, the considerations that have 
been presented show convincingly the overmas- 
tering and permanent influence of the strategic 
centre in the Levant, due to the aggregation 
there of several features, each of which is of the 
first natural importance. It is difficult to resist 
the conclusion that these inalienable characteris- 
tics will ever invest the region, as a whole, with 



The Problem of Asia 83 

the significance which in successive past epochs 
emphasized the names of Alexandria and of Con- 
stantinople, as the concrete expression of great 
complex facts. To our own age the like mean- 
ing is conveyed more impressively by the word 
Suez ; for in that little isthmus and its canal is 
concentrated for western Europe the question of 
access to the greater East. All the considera- 
tions that have been advanced as regards Asiatic 
Turkey, Persia, Egypt, the basin of the Mediter- 
ranean, etc., are in this connection but accessory, 
deriving their importance from the effect they 
may have upon the great line of communications 
whose most critical point is at the neck of land 
which joins Africa and Asia. Will it be the 
dictate, of prudence even, to forsake this line, for 
the long circumnavigation by the Cape of Good 
Hope? To pose the question with somewhat 
of brutal candor, is this shorter road possessed 
only by favor, subject to the will and power of 
foreign states ? Is such a conclusion necessary, 
in view of evident rivalry of interests among other 
countries? And is it possible, without self- 
inflicted national humiliation, under the existing 
conditions, which are the results, the testimonials 
of a career that, step by step, has been increas- 



84 The Problem of Asia 

mgly to the lasting honor of Great Britain as a 
benefactor of mankind ? 

For some time to come, to the full reach of 
the farthest view opened by present indications, 
the world's general movement of assimilative 
progress will be, not north and south, but east 
and west ; in both ways upon Asia, which now 
offers the greatest stimulant to all the tendencies 
that impel advance. The course and influence 
of these eastern and western movements will be 
modified and concentrated by the two isthmuses, 
Panama and Suez, where the shortest line com- 
pels the removal of natural obstacles by artificial 
means, which in the case of the latter have 
already been successful. Speaking broadly, the 
two canals will mark a line of division, south of 
which the efforts of commerce and of politics will 
be intrinsically much less important than those 
which occur to the north. Great, however, as 
will be the consequence of both canals, that of 
Suez must remain the greater ; partly because 
there is not to it — nor in any near future can 
be — such an alternative as is presented by the 
transcontinental railroads of America; partly 
because there cluster about it natural conditions 
— ^the Strait of Gibraltar, the Black Sea and 



The Problem of Asia 85 

Dardanelles, the Red Sea and the Strait of Bab- 
el-Mandeb, the political decadence of Turkey — 
that have no equivalent in the case of the Ameri- 
can isthmus, and also international jealousies, to 
which the existing political distribution of the 
Western Hemisphere is less conducive. 

If the generalizations of the last paragraph be 
correct, the question naturally arises, should they 
entail any modification in political habits of 
thought ? Concerning this, if the assertions them- 
selves, and the precedent statements upon which 
they rest, are accepted, it follows, first, that they 
become the primary consideration in the direction 
to be given to external policy; by which is not 
meant that all other considerations are excluded, 
but that, being secondary, they are to be viewed 
with strict reference to the first, as subordinate or 
contributory to it. This affects the importance 
of South Africa to Great Britain, in so far as 
effort there affects the necessary concentration up- 
on the Isthmus of Suez. As regards the United 
States, the value of the Caribbean Sea, being the 
outworks of the Central American isthmus, is in 
every aspect largely inreased, and all indications 
of political change affecting it even remotely must 
be sedulously watched ; but, on the American 



86 The Problem of Asia 

continent, south of the points whence influence 
can be eflfectually exerted upon the isthmus, the 
Monroe doctrine loses much of its primacy. If 
national honor demand, we can continue to assert 
it in its utmost present extension; but in view 
of the rapid pronounced transfer of the world's 
ambitions and opportunities to Asia, it is un- 
deniable that the centre of interest has shifted 
afar, for us as for others. If the new stake be 
as large and as imminent as is believed, it is to be 
pondered whether we do not weaken our power 
for efficient action there by continuing pledged to 
the political — which is the military — protection 
of states that bear us no love. Concentration — 
exclusiveness of purpose — is the condition of 
successful action in national policy, as well as in 
military enterprise. Rightly understood, the 
southern extremities of the Eastern and Western 
hemispheres must for the time stand aside, as of 
subsidiary interest to the greater movements 
elsewhere occurring. 

So far in our discussion attention has been 
fixed almost exclusively upon the peoples and 
the states external to Asia, or at least to the 
middle zone of so-called debatable ground, in 
apparent oversight of the teeming population of 



The Problem of Asia 87 

the latter. It has seemed, doubtless, as though 
these were being regarded as not even pawns in 
the game, but only as the stake to go to the 
stronger. Such, however, has not been the case. 
The condition of these peoples is not that of 
sheep to be owned, although in some respects it 
much resembles that of sheep without a shep- 
herd ; for strong and virile as may be their 
native characters in individual manifestation, 
much of the force of the Asiatic is expended in 
maintaining a dogged stationariness of develop- 
ment, which has settled at last into an apparent 
impotency for self-regeneration, whether of social 
institutions or of government. If this generali- 
zation be approximately correct — and there is 
much to justify it in the known conditions — it 
follows either that these races must remain thus 
immobile for an indeterminate future, — which is 
unthinkable, — or else that movement, progress, 
reform, must start from external impulses. \n 
the latter case the question of the source and 
character of these impulses, in themselves, and in 
the changes that they would tend to beget in 
methods, and ultimately in character, organiza- 
tion, and action, is evidently of the first import- 
ance to the world. If the eiFective impulse 



88 The Problem of Asia 

should be mainly Slavonic, there will be a result 
of one character ; if Teutonic, of another ; if 
Asiatic, yet a different. Again, it will matter 
much whether races essentially homogeneous 
remain nationally one ; or whether, from local 
distinctions now existing, they pass, at least for a 
time, into a condition of division into states 
politically independent and rivals. Far as the 
result lies beyond our present horizon, it is diffi- 
cult to contemplate with equanimity such a vast 
mass as the four hundred millions of China 
concentrated into one effective political organiza- 
tion, equipped with modern appliances, and 
cooped within a territory already narrow for it. 
The character of the civilization which it is des- 
tined to receive, from the influences now sur- 
rounding and impinging upon it, will go far to 
determine the future of the world ; for civiliza- 
tion, in final analysis, means, not material devel- 
opment in the external environment, but the 
elevation of personal, and, through personal, of 
national character. 

It is not, therefore, in negligence of the future 
of these peoples, but in consequence of the im- 
mense importance to them, and to all, of the 
direction that future shall take, that the question 



The Problem of Asia 89 

of the character and relative strength of the 
external contestants for influence possesses such 
immediate interest. The variance of the latter 
— if such it be — is the opening chapter of a 
long history, the end of which is involved in no 
small degree in these its beginnings. It is a long, 
long view, and foresight unquestionably fails to 
see the end; but this far it can surely reach — 
that the elements of danger and of good are so 
certainly great that there must now be serious 
prevision, by careful measurement of conditions, 
sustained watchfulness, and vigorous effort, to 
insure that nothing unduly sudden or extreme 
occur — nothing revolutionary ; that there shall 
be gained time, the great element of safety, by 
the operation of which transformation is retarded 
into evolution. For whatever the character of 
the process, the result cannot be to obliterate the 
qualities of these races, but to introduce them as 
factors into our existing civilization, from which 
they have for ages stood apart ; in like manner as 
the Teutonic genius entered into the civilization 
of Rome, not by sudden convulsion — though 
with many a throe — but through a protracted 
process of development, under the reciprocal in- 
fluence of race characteristics essentially as diverse. 



90 The Problem of Asia 

almost, as those of opposite sexes. That the 
result was thus happily protracted, to our own 
great gain at this present moment, was due, as 
Mommsen has indicated, to the foresight — the 
long view- — of Caesar ; partial, doubtless, even in 
so great a man, partly, it may be, even uncon- 
scious, but seeing, nevertheless, unto conviction, 
from afar, the dangers that the conditions foretold, 
and turning his attention with the intuition of 
genius to the provision of a barrier, by advancing 
the borders and consolidating the outworks of the 
Roman state, until positions were held which 
should insure delay — the primary, though not 
the final, aim of all defensive dispositions. 

Our first necessity, therefore, is to recognize 
that for European civilization in its turn has now 
arrived an important period, a day of visitation ; 
that a process has begun which must end either 
in bringing the Eastern and Western civilizations 
face to face, as opponents who have nothing in 
common, or else in receiving the new elements, 
the Chinese especially, as factors which, however 
they may preserve their individuality — as is 
desirable, and as the Latin and the Teuton still 
do — have been profoundly aifected by long- 
continued intimate contact, and in such wise as- 



The Problem of Asia 91 

similated that the further association may proceed 
quietly to work out peacefully its natural results. 
To effect this does not demand the merging of 
national characteristics, but it does require more 
than material development, even the indwelling 
of a common spirit, a gift far more slow of 
growth than the process of material advance. 
Thus as the Latin civilization at the moment of 
decisive confrontation with Teutonic vigor found 
its expression in the Roman law and the imperial 
idea, — of which the centralized Church was the 
natural inheritor, — our own, while embodying 
many diverse national types, finds its unity in 
the hallowing traditions of a common Christian- 
ity ; which is not the unimproved inheritance of 
a single generation, a talent laid up in a napkin, 
but an ever-swelling volume of inbred spiritual 
convictions, transmitted habits of thought, which, 
by their growth from generation to generation, 
attest their unimpaired vitality. 

Measured by this standard, the incorporation 
of this vast mass of beings, the fringe of which 
alone we have as yet touched, into our civiliza- 
tion, to the spirit of which they have hitherto 
been utter strangers, is one of the greatest prob- 
lems that humanity has yet had to solve ; but to 



92 The Problem of Asia 

us, having the light of past experience, there is 
concerning it no ground for doubt, much less for 
fear. The success with which, in our society of 
nations, the Latin and the Teuton types mingle, 
without losing their individuality or their respec- 
tive spheres of manifestation and of influence, 
has been due mainly, if not exclusively, to that 
one spirit which during the critical period found 
its home in the hearts of each, and became the 
common possession of races so diverse and for so 
long estranged. In its sign, in truth, they con- 
quered, for it broke down the wall of partition 
between them, as between the Jew and the Gen- 
tile, reconciling the antagonism of ages without 
impairing the permanence of type. We may be 
sure, therefore, that the difficulty now before us 

— of long estrangement, present lack of mutual 
comprehension, and ultimate unity to be attained 

— cannot be adequately regarded from the stand- 
point of mere commercial advantages — the short 
view of immediate interests. However such con- 
siderations may serve to further a policy suited 
to the wants of the distant future, it will be only 
as they are in a direction generally right, the 
determination of which must be otherwise esti- 
mated. All the factors already indicated in this 



The Problem of Asia 93 

paper, and such others as may hereafter appear in 
it or elsewhere, should be contemplated not only 
in the light of immediate advantage, but of that 
great inevitable future, when, aroused to the con- 
sciousness of power, and organized by the appro- 
priation of European methods, these peoples, and 
especially China, shall be able to assert an influ- 
ence proportionate to their mass, and to demand 
their shares in the general advantage. Those 
who live in that day will recognize then, what 
our duty to them requires us to realize now, how 
immense the importance to the world that their 
development has been not merely material, but 
spiritual ; that time shall have been secured for 
them to absorb the ideals which in ourselves are 
the result of centuries of Christian increment. 

For the gaining of this necessary time, we and 
our posterity have much to hope from the fact 
that our present world of civilization consists of 
strong opposing nationalities, and is not one huge, 
consolidated imperium, such as that of which 
Caesar laid the foundation, driven thereto be- 
cause the individual declension of the Roman 
citizen had destroyed the material from which the 
more healthful organism of earlier days could 
have been reconstituted. It is a weighty tribute 



94 T^h^ Problem of Asia 

to his genius, and to the wisdom of the more 
eminent among his successors, that by their adroit 
skill of adjustment an organization should have 
perpetuated its energy so long after vitality had 
departed from its frame. Fixed in this mould 
of arrested, or fulfilled, development, knowing 
only intestine turmoil, without recognized rival 
to stimulate it in the struggle for existence, and 
so to preserve it from stagnation and consequent 
decay, the great, centralized, unified world of that 
epoch resembled a building whose stability de- 
pends not upon solidity of foundation, but upon 
the equilibrium of a house of cards. The ex- 
ample may be commended to the study of those 
who, by increase of international organization, and 
consequent diminution of individual state action, 
would push to a similar fatal unification, under a 
centralized authority, our own world of civiliza- 
tion, already sufficiently bound in the traditions 
and customs which inevitably accumulate, like 
papers in pigeon-holes, about all continuous 
activities, political or individual. Contrast with 
this, and with the disorders into which Charle- 
magne's empire fell, after that unified organization 
was shattered by the lapse of centralized authority 
involved in his personal death, the energy of the 



The Problem of Asia 95 

broken warring communities that rolled back the 
Saracenic invasion and evolved the subsequent 
social order of Europe, but whose strength lay in 
the strenuous vitality fostered by constant com- 
petition among themselves. Nothing more fatal 
can be devised for the states of our civilization, 
and for that civilization itself, than the habit, 
happily not yet acquired, of looking for the 
solution of doubts and the adjustments of inter- 
ests to a central external authority, the analogue 
of governmental fostering care for the private 
citizen — of " paternalism." The health of the 
community of states, as of the community of f 
citizens, depends upon the vigor of the individual | 
members, of which rational self-sufficingness is an \ 
inevitable attendant. The rivalries of national in- 
terests, and the sharp competitions thence arising, / 
serve to perpetuate the strong contrasts of race / 
temperament and political methods which now ex- I 
ist among us ; and this virility of national charac- 
ters, born and sustained in conflict, will on the one! 
hand intensify the inner impulse communicated tol 
the Asiatic, and on the other, by their very counter- 
action, will retard the day of formal exterior con- 
formity, the premature arrival of which, complete 
in form but imperfect in spirit, is to be dreaded. 



CHAPTER III 

THE accentuating rivalry between the states 
of our civilization arising from the unstable 
conditions of China, long uneasily felt, but not 
formally avowed, is now approaching a moment 
resembling that fixed for the unveiling of a statue. 
The presence of the statue is no secret, the very 
folds of the drapery betray its outlines, yet it is 
as it were ignored, until the date fixed for dis- 
play. From yesterday to to-morrow things 
continue essentially as they have been ; yet we 
all know by experience how profound the change, 
the increased sense of imminence and of respon- 
sibility, when the curtain falls, and facts long 
dissembled are looked straight in the face. 
Without moving, we have traversed years of 
event. Action that seemed susceptible of 
indefinite procrastination appears now to have 
been too long deferred. Opportunities which 
might have been seized are seen to have passed 
irretrievably, because in heedlessness or indolence 



The Problem of Asia 97 

we noted not the day of visitation. But, as has 
been remarked, it is not China alone that Hes 
within the debatable zone. With but slight 
modification of phrase, what has been said of her 
may be affirmed of Afghanistan, of Persia, and of 
Asiatic Turkey, on the other flank of the line. 

In contemplating the possibilities of action, it 
must be repeated that consideration for the popu- 
lations involved should have precedence of the 
interests of external nations — even of the one, 
or ones, taking action. This is not said as a 
cover or an apology for measures the originating 
motive of which may be national self-interest. 
Self-interest is not only a legitimate, but a funda- \ 
mental, cause for national policy ; one which 
needs no cloak of hypocrisy. As a principle it 
does not require justification in general statement, 
although the propriety of its application to a 
particular instance may call for demonstration. 
But as a matter of preparation, for dealing wisely 
and righteously with this great question, against 
the chance of occasion arising, — a mental prepara- 
tion which no government can afford to post- 
pone, — the very first element of a just and 
far-seeing decision must be the determination to 
bear in mind, and to give due precedence to, the 

7 



98 The Problem of Asia 

natural rights and the future development of the 
peoples most directly affected. The phrase 
"natural rights" is chosen expressly to indicate 
those that result from the simple fact of being 
born ; in this distinct from political or legal 
rights, which depend upon other fitnesses than 
that of merely being a man. Thus the claim of 
an indigenous population to retain indefinitely con- 
trol of territory depends not upon a natural right, 
but upon political fitness, shown in the political 
work of governing, administering, and develop- 
ing, in such manner as to insure the natural right 
of the world at large that resources should not 
be left idle, but be utilized for the general good. 
Failure to do this justifies, in principle, compul- 
sion from outside ; the position to be demon- 
strated, in the particular instance, is that the 
necessary time and the fitting opportunity have 
arrived. 

The interests of the populations in these coun- 
tries is by no means necessarily identical with 
those of the present governments, nor with the 
continuance of the latter in either form or per- 
son. These are not representative, in the sense 
that they either embody the wishes or promote 
the best welfare of the subject. They repre- 



The Problem of Asia 99 

sent at most the incapacity of the people to 
govern themselves, and in their defects are the 
results of generations of evolution from a false 
system, unmodified by healthy opposition. Being 
what they are, should necessity demand their 
discontinuance, there need be no tenderness in 
dealing with them as institutions, whatever con- 
sideration may be shown to the incumbents of- 
the moment. 

It is, in fact, the inefficiency of the govern- 
ments that chiefly gives rise to the present un- 
easiness. Were they otherwise, the balance of 
strength which now exists between the land and 
the sea powers, as already indicated, and the 
commercial interest of the latter in the preserva- 
tion of peace, would naturally and easily deter- 
mine their maintenance against any aggression 
that overpassed the fortunes common to all 
states, and threatened their permanence or inde- 
pendence. As it is, confronted with the immi- 
nent probability of a dissolution, neither the 
time nor the circumstances of which can be fore- 
seen, the result of causes either internal or exter- 
nal, or both, other nations are compelled to seek 
the preservation of their own interests, by means 
which may employ the existing governments, If 



Lof 



loo The Problem of Asia 

these are equal to the task, or may supersede 
them. That either alternative is repugnant to 
the genius and traditions of the United States, it 
is needless to say. Under the government of no 
party will she willingly initiate a process so con- 
trary to her preferences, and the grave issues of 
which cannot be foreseen ; but equally, under no 
government can she stand by and see substantial 
injury done to the welfare of her citizens by the 
undue preponderance of an inimical system of 
occupation or of influence. 

Accepting the existence of the problem in the 
terms so far stated, a solution may be attempted. 
Granting outside interference at all, — which not 
only is most likely, but has actually begun, — 
the successful issue would be found in a condi- 
tion of political equilibrium between the external 
powers, whereby the equality of opposing forces, 
resting each on stable foundations, should pre- 
vent the undue preponderance of any one state, 
or of any one force resulting from a combination 
of states, and which at the same time should pro- 
mote, at the utmost rate consistent with healthy 
growth, the material and spiritual development 
of the populations affected. Thus would be 
hastened the desirable day when the latter, while 



The Problem of Asia loi 

still retaining their special traits and aptitudes, 
shall have been successfully grafted on to the 
civilization of Europe, which, whatever its short- 
comings, certainly has produced the best fruits in 
the individual, social, and political well-being of 
its members. This vital change effected, these 
new branches will then be able to discharge all 
functions of self-dependent and self-governing 
peoples, such as now constitute the international 
commonwealth. Is it too much to say that in 
Japan, being a country of manageable dimensions, 
our own day has witnessed just such a change ? — 
demonstrating the possibility of absorbing the 
benefits, intellectual as well as material, of a 
system hitherto alien, and of entering into the 
community of its life without sacrificing national 
individuality ? And while it is doubtless true 
that Japan has not experienced the governmental 
paralysis of China, she has, since she felt the 
impulse of the foreigner, passed through a revo- 
lution of institutions, from which only recently 
she has emerged, to the general admiration, into 
the full enjoyment of all international dignity 
and privilege. It is evident, however, that the 
duration of such a process depends in some con- 
siderable degree upon the bulk of the subject by 



I02 The Problem of Asia 

which it is undergone ; and when this is large, as 
in China, the effect of external impulses will be 
accelerated in proportion to the number of 
points, or to the extent of surface, to which they 
are applied. Making every allowance for the 
adaptability of the people of Japan, to which so 
much of her success is to be attributed, it may 
plausibly be inferred that her comparative small- 
ness of area and of population facilitated her pro- 
gress; and that accordingly many points of contact 
will be favorable to the development of the 
greatly superior mass of China, by distributing 
the external influences among areas correspond- 
ing to those centres through which the respective 
powers may act. 

To such diifusion of influences, and to assur- 
ance of equilibrium, the presence and differing 
interests of many states will tend. Nor will it 
be without benefit that the effects produced will 
represent very great differences of characteristics, 
corresponding to the national types engaged. 
In so great an aggregate as that of China, variety 
and contrast of result would be intrinisically 
good ; and if they promoted political subdivision, 
that also probably would be beneficial, both for 
the internal administration of the country and for 



The Problem of Asia 103 

the general political equilibrium of the world. 
As has before been said, it is scarcely desirable 
that so vast a proportion of mankind as the 
Chinese constitute should be animated by but 
one spirit and moved as a single man. If not a 
diversity of governments, at the least a strong 
antagonism of parties, embodying opposite con- 
ceptions of national policy, is to be hoped, as 
conducive to the| healthful balance of herself and 
of other countries. It was not wholly a mistake 
that some in the ancient world deprecated the 
ruin of Carthage, and the disappearance of her 
influence upon the international relations of the 
day, with the consequent fall of Rome into cor- 
ruption within and excess without, through the 
abuse of power to which no adequate external 
check remained. 

There is therefore no cause to lament the 
rivalries, nor the conflict of systems, represented 
by the various nationalities which are now impress- 
ing China with the consciousness of the urgency 
of their demands. The facts exist, beyond the 
chance of speedy reversal, and must now be 
accepted as they are : conditions of the immediate 
present, elements of the short view, by which 
current auction must be modified. It is unpracti- 



I04 The Problem of Asia 

cal to expend emotion in regret for the inevitable ; 
it is better utilized as a stimulus to action, pre- 
ventive or remedial. The necessity now is to 
take the next steps as nearly as possible in the 
direction of the ultimate goal, the ascertainment 
of which has been the object of what has so far 
been said ; in other words, to seek the speedy 
establishment of conditions under which there shall 
be a balance of influence between land power 
and sea power, and at the same time a mini- 
mum of friction between the two ensue. The 
problem, from its nature, especially demands study 
by the Teutonic nations, — Germany, Great Brit- 
ain, and the United States ; for to them, represent- 
ing as they do one party to the case, co-operation 
— not alliance, nor even pledge — is necessary, 
and co-operation must depend upon identity of 
conviction, resting upon community of interest. 
A single state like Russia, equipped with a govern- 
ment embodying the simplest conception of polit- 
ical unity, escapes the embarrassment inevitable 
to several nations, of more complex organization, 
in which the wills of the citizens have to be 
brought, not to submission merely, but to accord ; 
and that upon a matter not only of national 
policy, but of international understanding. 



The Problem of Asia 105 

Of other countries, France, it may be presumed, 
is by her artificial connection engaged to some 
extent to the policy of Russia in the East ; 
whether for better or for worse will depend upon 
the coincidence of this with her natural interests 
there. At present, the principal result of the 
alliance is to emphasize the divergence of interests 
internal to the group of Latin nations. This 
is probably inevitable, both as a historical con- 
sequence of their too great proximity, and from 
their present conflicting ambitions in the Medi- 
terranean. Nor can there be left out of account 
here the sincerely cordial interest, both past and 
present, of the English-speaking nations in the 
progress and confirmation of Italian unity. This 
can scarcely fail to strengthen, by all the subtile 
force of sentiment, on the one side and the other, 
the bond of a common interest in the Mediter- 
ranean, which is created and unified by the his- 
toric and unceasing eflForts of France for a pre- 
ponderance there, intolerable to other states. In 
face of an immediate urgency like this, especially 
when supported by the might of Russia, it is 
unreal to appeal to an argument so phantasmal 
as a common Latinity ; for France, after all, is 
Latin but imperfectly, in organization rather than 



io6 The Problem of Asia 

in temperament. The Gallic admixture, whatever 
its advantages, apparently carries with it a lack 
of the steadfastness essential to the endurance of 
political combination. From these relations of 
antagonism follow two chief results : first, that the 
French positional control of the western Mediter- 
ranean is much weakened ; and again, that there 
is no third racial genius comparable, in political 
influence, to the two by which the European 
pressure upon Asia is chiefly constituted, — the 
Slavonic and the Teutonic. 

There remains to consider Japan, the import- 
ance of whose part is evident, because she is the 
one nation, Asiatic in genius as in position, which 
by efficiency of action, internal as well as external, 
has established and maintained its place as a fully 
equipped member of the commonwealth of states, 
under recognized international law. It has al- 
ready been noted that the essential elements of 
her strength, being insular, place her inevitably in 
the ranks of the Sea Powers, and whatever ambi- 
tions of territorial acquisition upon the continent 
she may entertain must be limited in extent, 
because of the limited number of her own popu- 
lation compared to that of the mainland adjacent ; 
farther than which, of course, it is not supposable 



The Problem of Asia 107 

that she can wish to extend her activities. West- 
ern Asia and the Mediterranean, for example, 
though inseparably a part of the broad world 
question which centres just now about China, are 
clearly beyond the scope of Japan. Like the 
United States, local conditions emphasize her 
primary interests in a particular region and in 
one continent. Unlike the United States, the 
contractedness of her area denies the expectation 
of a superfluity of force, disposable in remoter 
quarters ; while the nearness, in Asia, of great 
rival powers diminishes still further the possibility 
of distant enterprises. Narrow restriction in local 
territorial occupancy, however, is common to all 
the interested states ; except, perhaps, Russia. 
The others, on account of their distance, as Japan 
on account of her size, must expect to affect 
China by impulses imparted to the inhabitants 
through commercial and political relations, sup- 
ported militarily by sea power, which, from its 
mobility, will be operative not only in the im- 
mediate locality, but wherever else throughout 
the world its force can be felt in checking an 
opposing influence — as, for instance, in the con- 
trol of commerce to its own advantage and to the 
injury of an enemy. 



io8 The Problem of Asia 

In the kind and methods of their power, and 
in their immediate interests, the Teutonic group 
and Japan are at one ; it is in the nature of the 
influence transmitted that they will differ, because 
the original genius and, still more important, the 
inherited traditions of the two are different. 
Japan has exhibited remarkable capacity and dili- 
gence in the appropriation and application of 
European ways ; but these are to her as yet an 
external acquisition, a piece of property, not a 
part of herself. In the European peoples these 
same ways, as they now exist, are the exponents 
of national character, of habits of thought, the out- 
come of centuries of evolution, in which a trans- 
mitted civilization, once exterior, has undergone an 
assimilative process under the operation of distinc- 
tive national faculties and environment. Such a 
result carries with it the assurance of perma- 
nence; not, indeed, in the form of stationariness, 
but in nature and direction of movement. Japan, 
in fact, from our point of view, is still under the 
disadvantage, by no means irretrievable, that the 
exterior and material characteristics of European 
civilization have been received too recently and 
rapidly for entire assimilation. In the short time 
that has elapsed since national political conversion 



The Problem of Asia 109 

began, it is not possible that change can have 
penetrated far below the surface, modifying essen- 
tial traits and modes of thought. This, indeed, 
can be effected healthfully only by the gradual 
processes of evolution. 

In the matter before us, co-operation — not 
formal alhance — between Germany, Great Brit- 
ain, and the United States would be a strictly 
natural condition, carrying with it a fair promise 
of continuance, because, being based upon a com- 
mon interest, its exertion would be governed by 
ideas substantially the same in origin, in tradition, 
and in spirit. The accession of Japan as a part- 
ner, if it take place, as may be hoped, will be the 
expression of a political phase, more or less last- 
ing ; of an expediency, resting upon the fact that, 
land and sea power being for the time in opposi- 
tion, her place is with the latter. But even so, 
and while acting together loyally for common 
ends, the subtile essential characteristics of race 
must make themselves felt, must impart a diver- 
gence of ideals and of influences, not by any means 
necessarily hostile. Japan, like China, is Asiatic ; 
the appreciativeness and energy with which she 
has embraced European standards and ways are a 
favorable omen, giving perhaps the surest promise 



no The Problem of Asia 

as yet in sight that these shall pass into the 
Asiatic life and remodel it, as the civilization of 
Rome passed into the Teutonic tribes. But the 
result in the latter case has been a Teutonic civil- 
ization, not a mere extension of that of Rome. 
So here, what we have to hope for is a renewed 
Asia, not another Europe ; and to this end the 
willing acceptance — nay, initiative — of an Asiatic 
nation is perhaps the most potent factor. 

It must, however, be recognized and candidly 
accepted that difference of race characteristics, 
original and acquired, entails corresponding tem- 
porary divergence of ideal and of action, with 
consequent liability to misunderstanding, or even 
collision. Such recognition is a necessary, as well 
as a most important, antecedent to provision for 
the future, in which we all hope for the prevalence 
of justice and peace. Divergence of interests 
generates contention, even among those of the 
same household ; but where there exists a com- 
munity of feeling and tradition to which appeal 
can be made, there is already a beginning of 
reconciliation, that is less easily found where mis- 
understanding results from divergence of temper- 
ament and ideals. Both sources of difficulty are 
present in our problem. The contrary interests 



The Problem of Asia ill 

and the positions of the land and the sea powers 
have been examined at some length. The differ- 
ences of temperament that are now meeting in 
Asia have been more casually indicated, but they 
may be summed up in the three races, the Asiatic, 
the Slavonic, and the Teutonic, neither of which 
probably can yet give to the others the perfect 
comprehension expressed in the word "unanim- 
ity." It is a prime necessity to recognize these 
diversities, to appreciate them, and to accept them, 
as being not causes of complaint, but difficulties 
to be smoothed ; not by abolishing them, which 
is impossible, but by allowing to each fair play, 
so long as it grows by its own inner energy, and 
does not attempt propagation by the alien means 
of armed compulsion. From such tolerant temper 
will ensue an adjustment corresponding to the 
true value of each element involved, which can- 
not be expected if essential differences are ignored, 
and the expectation of uniformity take the place 
of that of unanimity, confounding oneness of spirit 
with oneness of operation. The distant solution, 
which all three races should desire, for the common 
good of Europe and of Asia, is not the subversion 
of Asiatic genius or institutions, but the quiet in- 
troduction of the European leaven — which itself. 



112 The Problem of Asia 

even when long accepted, is modified in form by- 
racial genius — and that this should be effected 
under conditions of mutual respect and kindli- 
ness, which will ensure its spread, if it possesses 
the advantages which we think. 

It is again a paradox — but yet truth — to say- 
that these conditions of equity and kindliness are 
only to be maintained by the presence of force ; 
by just self-assertion, taking the shape of insistence 
upon equality of opportunity, and supporting its 
demand by such evident preparation of means as 
will compel due attention. Preparation — readi- 
ness — insures consideration ; and consideration 
necessarily takes the form of courtesy, as well as 
imposes study and realization of conditions. 
Both tend to peace, by removing impediments to 
the full play and due effect of the many factors 
— position, numbers, race, temperament, political 
institutions, national aptitudes of every kind — 
by whose freedom to work their natural results, 
and to attain their natural levels, the adjustment 
of evolution, the only secure result, will be 
reached. 

Consideration worthy of the name implies 
candid acceptance of all the factors, and patient 
effort to appreciate them ; but while this is in 



The Problem of Asia 113 

one way a very complex process, because there 
are many details, it is simplified in conception by 
the recognition of a very few distinguishing fea- 
tures. There must be the speculative forecast 
of the distant future, hand in hand with the 
consciousness of what at the moment is possible ; 
and there must also be embraced, in due relative 
proportions, the sense of primary duty to one's 
own country, and an unremitting regard to the 
real exigencies and needs of other peoples. For 
the latter, as well as the former, are part of the 
account ; and states in their community, as well 
as citizens in their commonwealths, should be 
characterized by a public spirit which, while giv- 
ing precedence properly to interests especially in 
their charge, is convinced also that these are best 
secured not by obstinately withstanding the pro- 
gress of others, but by providing for its reasonable 
satisfaction. 

In this spirit, then, let us give consideration to 
the demands of to-day, in the light of the long 
view of the distant future as so far set forth for 
acceptance. In the present backward political 
condition of Asia, which accurately reflects the 
want of political aptitude in its peoples, the lack 
of effective organization deprives her great mass 



114 The Problem of Asia 

of population of the power of effective initiative, 
limiting its present function to a load of inertia, 
of passive resistance to change, which is, indeed, 
no contemptible factor in the evolution of the 
future, but against which no immediate provision 
is necessary. In organized preparation for ad- 
vance, Japan alone represents the Asiatic; and 
Japan, so long as in this respect by herself, is not 
big enough to contribute the weight upon which, 
as well as upon force of impulse, momentum de- 
pends. For the moment Japan is perforce con- 
fined to deciding which of the two other contend- 
ing races is by character and ambitions most 
favorable, both to her immediate interests and to 
the free ultimate development of Asia in the line 
of its natural capacities ; and upon these consid- 
erations she must shape her course. 

Between the two other races, the Slav and the 
Teuton, there are well-recognized racial diverg- 
encies, which find concrete expression in differ- 
ences, equally marked, of political institutions, of 
social progress, and of individual development. 
It is reasonable to believe that these differences 
are partly fundamental, deep-seated in the racial 
constitution, and partly the result of the environ- 
ment amid which either has passed its centuries 



The Problem of Asia 115 

of growth. There is between them the antago- 
nism that results from lack of mutual comprehen- 
sion, while to that is added a conflict of interests, 
such as is inherent in their relative positions in 
Asia, as heretofore analyzed, and in their conse- 
quent necessary ambitions. To deal satisfactorily 
with such a condition it is first of all necessary to 
admit it ; not to gloze truth with a thin and use- 
less veneer of uncandid professions of good-will, 
diluted by mental reservations. That done, it 
may be profitably asked whether parallel lines 
may not run in one direction instead of in oppo- 
sition ; whether it may not be possible for us 
even to converge, accepting one another as we 
are, not exacting uniformity, but finding in the 
one object which attracts our aims a centre of 
unanimity rather than of discord. This, however, 
is impracticable unless each recognizes the crucial 
necessities of the other. 

There can be little doubt that beyond substan- 
tial differences of racial characteristics, which find 
necessary expression in modes of action — for 
action is the materialization of spirit — the acci- 
dental line of separation between the two races, 
defining their interests and their ambitions, is 
denoted by the ideas of land power and sea 



ii6 The Problem of Asia 

power. This distinction proceeds alike from 
present possession and from present want. It 
inheres in their positions, both absolutely, and as 
related to the common objects of interest or of 
desire in Asia. It attaches conspicuously to the 
question of communications, of access to those 
objects. The Teuton, under the three great 
national heads, possesses the sea, from which the 
Slav is almost debarred. The Teuton is inferior 
in land power, for, in all his branches and settle- 
ments, he is geographically far removed from 
Asia, with which a great part of the Slavonic 
tenure is coterminous. The communications of 
Asia with the outer world are fullest by way of 
the sea ; and here again it is the Teuton that 
leads, as well in naval as in commercial develop- 
ment, and by a superiority which admits no 
rival. 

Essentially, this relative condition cannot be 
reversed ; it can only be modified, and that to 
the extent of reasonable concession, not of 
equality. Its maintenance, being in the line of 
nature's dispositions, is a rule of healthy policy, 
that will dictate or control national demands for 
local influence or possession, as aff*ecting pre- 
ponderance upon the element with which the 



The Problem, of Asia 117 

racial strength is identified. On the other hand, 
it must equally be recognized that each race 
absolutely requires some foothold, though an 
inferior one, on the field which is not primarily 
its own ; and this common, reciprocal need indi- 
cates the quarters in which mutual concession 
must smooth the way towards adjustment. 

For instance, it is abundantly clear that Russia 
can never be satisfied with the imperfect, and 
politically dependent, access to the sea afforded 
her by the Baltic and the Black Sea, under pres- 
ent conditions. It is to the writer equally clear 
that the European members of the Teutonic 
family, Germany and Great Britain, cannot pos- 
sibly admit her predominance in the Levant — 
and through this over the Suez route — which 
would be acquired if the enclosed naval basin of 
the Black Sea were converted into an impregnable 
base, for exit and for entrance, by the acquisition 
of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. There 
is not in the world a parallel to this combination 
of advantages for the secure development, drill, 
and egress at will, of a formidable fleet ; while its 
situation relatively to the canal would revolution- 
ize commercial conditions, in so far as dependent 
upon naval power. So strong is my conviction 



1 1 8 The Problem of Asia 

upon this point that, while heartily wishing the 
success of the British arms in the current war in 
South Africa, I should see compensation even 
for utter defeat and loss in the necessity for Great 
Britain then to concentrate upon the Mediter- 
ranean and the Levant, and, in accord with 
Germany, to preserve a predominance about the 
isthmus, including Asia Minor ; thus assuring 
a route necessary to both nations, and for which 
that by the Cape of Good Hope is no adequate 
alternative/ 

How and where, then, can concession be made 
to the sea wants of Russia ? There are two 
quarters remaining, and only two ; neither wholly 
satisfactory, and by that very fact confirming the 
essential isolation of the Slav from the sea. 
They will be repeated, with a brief mention of 
the advantages and disadvantages of each to the 
two parties chiefly concerned. There is the 
Persian Gulf, reached by land through Persia 
from the shores of the Caspian ; and there is the 
seaboard of China, to which access is had through 
Siberia. The former involves an aggression 
upon Persia, or concession from her ; for it can 
in no way be considered adequate to Russia's 

^ These words were written December 12, 1899. 



The Problem of Asia 119 

ambitions unless it carries with it extensive and 
consecutive territorial possession, from her present 
southern limits in East Turkestan to the borders 
of the gulf. If this be obtained, Russia is placed 
upon the flank of India ; she controls one issue 
of any possible railroad from the Mediterranean 
through the valley of Mesopotamia, and abso- 
lutely interposes between it and its prolongation 
to India. Besides this, although the Persian 
Gulf has no such absolute control of the route 
to the East, via Suez, as is conferred by predomi- 
nance in the Levant, it nevertheless does afford 
a flanking position, and entails a perpetual menace 
in war. In addition, it may be remarked that 
the maintenance there, by Russia, of a navy 
sufficient to be a serious consideration to the 
fleets of Great Britain, and to those who would 
be her natural allies upon the sea in case of com- 
plications in the farther East, would involve an 
exhausting effort, and a naval abandonment of 
the Black Sea, or of the China Sea, or of both. 
Naval divisions distributed among the three could 
not possibly give mutual support. Such a situa- 
tion, contrasted with the secure, though long, 
access to the China sea coast, through territory 
either her own or under facile control, and with 



I20 The Problem of Asia 

a fleet concentrated there, on the spot of greatest 
interest to the world, presents drawbacks so 
obvious that there is no motive, in the good of 
Russia, for the other states to consent to an 
arrangement which carries with it hazard to them. 
On the other hand, it appears unreasonable, 
and needlessly provocative of bad feeling, to 
object to her reaching the sea on the seaboard of 
China. Thus, here again, by an inevitable oper- 
ation of a line of least resistance, we find on the 
eastern flank of the debatable zone, as on the 
western, the clustering of the nationalities, the 
gathering of the eagles, around a central interest, 
which derives its disputable character from the 
moribund condition of the local government. 

In acknowledgment of their willing acquies- 
cence in this coast tenure, opening free communi- 
cation into the seas of the world, the sea powers 
may reasonably claim equal candor of admission 
that the navigable stream of the Yang-tse-kiang 
is their necessary line of access into the land, and 
the nucleus essential to the local spread of their 
influence. Like all arrangements here suggested, 
this reciprocal agreement should not be in the 
nature of formal convention, but of an under- 
standing ; which is not arbitrary, but rests upon 



The Problem of Asia 121 

existing facts that receive recognition in a spirit 
of mutual concession. It carries the corollary 
that there shall not be established upon the 
banks of the Yang-tse-kiang, by fortification or 
otherwise, any military tenure by which its waters 
can be forcibly closed to the sea powers. That 
the latter, under such conditions, will refrain dur- 
ing peace from using their own naval strength to 
debar others from commercial use of the river is 
insured ; partly by the settled policy of the one 
among them that now has the greatly preponder- 
ant navy, partly by the mutual watchfulness be- 
tween themselves which is inseparable from all 
combinations of states. In this instance co-oper- 
ation among the naval nations depends upon a 
common opposition to a particular movement, 
naturally antagonistic to them, and upon a com- 
mon interest, which, being accurately understood, 
will prevent measures that inure to the dispro- 
portionate sway of any one of them. 

In fact, as regards possible aggression upon 
China, land power, being the prerogative of a 
single state, near at hand, is far more to be feared 
than sea power ; for the latter is distributed 
among several, the bases of whose national 
strength are remote, and moreover it is in its 



122 The Problem of Asia 

methods more promotive of benefit, for it finds 
the sources of its vigor in commerce — only 
secondarily in force. It is therefore especially 
interested in elevating, rather than in subjugating, 
those with whom it deals, and the aim here, for 
the welfare of the world, should not be compul- 
sion, but influence ; not the appropriation of 
these countries, by one or by many, but the 
gradual evolution of their inhabitants, through 
material progress, and through mental contact 
with a civilization that has so far given the highest 
individual and social results. That such a pro- 
cess should be underlain by force — force of in- 
trusion on the part of the outside influences, 
force of opposition among the latter themselves 
— may be regrettable, but it is only a repetition 
of all history. Force has been the instrument by 
which ideas have lifted the European world to 
the plane on which it now is, and it still supports 
our political systems, national and international, 
as well as our social organization. 

In summary, therefore, and with respect both 
to the remote future and to immediate policy, the 
issue of events in the seas of China and in the 
Levant, in the extreme east and extreme west of 
Asia, will depend upon the presence of force. 



The Problem of Asia 123 

evident in positions occupied and in numbers 
available. This condition, at once natural and 
inevitable, dictates co-operation — not formal, 
but none the less clearly conscious — between 
the Teutonic nations, because of their fundamen- 
tal identity of interest, which is the material 
factor, and because the conduct to which that in- 
terest and the nature of their power alike impel is 
animated by one spirit. That is the spirit of 
commerce — of interchange — essentially free, 
and desirous of an influence which, although it 
can and must be maintained by naval force locally 
displayed, cannot be widely diffused by the same 
agency ; because the conditions of its strength 
narrowly limit its extension inland, making it for 
this chiefly dependent upon native local support. 
For effects, present and future, the sea powers 
must rely upon evident benefit following from 
association with them ; a means which induces 
acceptance, not submission. Their force, resting 
on the sea, can serve only to frustrate attempts to 
exclude themselves, or, if occasion arise, to aid 
the populations concerned in resistance to subjec- 
tion. To accomplish these things they must work 
together; not in the letter of alliance, which fetters, 
but in the spirit of accord, which comprehends- 



124 The Problem of Asia 

From existing elements of opposition, the 
future of Asia will remain a question in which 
military considerations must predominate ; until, 
at least, antagonism shall have passed into ad- 
justment. Thus regarded, the nature and direc- 
tion of effective co-operation are indicated by the 
geographical conditions which constitute the 
strategic situation. These have been discussed 
at large in the previous papers. It is enough to 
recall here, in summary, that the chief centre of 
interest, because of its extent and present un- 
settled state, is China, around which, however, 
are grouped the other wealthy districts, continen- 
tal and insular, which constitute eastern Asia, 
from Java to Japan. These markets of the 
future are the near objectives of the political and 
military discussions which now attract attention ; 
but beyond them, in any statesmanlike view, lies 
the remote future result upon Asiatics of the im- 
pressions they may receive in absorbing and 
assimilating European civilization. Will they, 
from the effects thus wrought upon them, enter 
its community, spiritually, as equals, as inferiors, 
or as superiors ? politically, as absorbing, or ab- 
sorbed ? 

Except Russia and Japan, the several nations 



The Problem of Asia 125 

actively concerned in this great problem rest, for 
home bases, upon remote countries. We find 
therefore two classes of powers : those whose 
communication is by land, and those who depend 
upon the sea. The sea lines are the most num- 
erous and easy, and they will probably be deter- 
minative of the courses of trade. Among them 
there are two the advantages of which excel all 
others — for Europe by Suez, from America by 
way of the Pacific Ocean. The latter will doubt- 
less receive further modification by an isthmian 
canal, extending the use of the route to the 
Atlantic seaboard of America, North and South. 

Communications dominate war ; broadly con- 
sidered, they are the most important single 
element in strategy, political or military. In its 
control over them has lain the pre-eminence of 
sea power — as an influence upon the history of 
the past ; and in this it will continue, for the at- 
tribute is inseparable from its existence. This is 
evident because, for reasons previously explained, 
transit in large quantities and for great distances 
is decisively more easy and copious by water than 
by land. The sea, therefore, is the great medium 
of communications — of commerce. The very 
sound, " commerce," brings with it a suggestion 



126 The Problem of Asia 

of the sea, for It is maritime commerce that has 
in all ages been most fruitful of wealth ; and 
wealth is but the concrete expression of a nation's 
energy of life, material and mental. The power, 
therefore, to insure these communications to 
one's self, and to interrupt them for an adversary, 
affects the very root of a nation's vigor, as in 
military operations it does the existence of an 
army, or as the free access to rain and sun — 
communication from without — does the life of a 
plant. This is the prerogative of the sea 
powers ; and this chiefly — if not, indeed, this 
alone — they have to set oflT against the disad- 
vantage of position and of numbers under which, 
with reference to land power, they labor in Asia. 
It is enough. Pressure afar off — -diversion — is 
adequate to relieve that near at hand, as Napoleon 
expected to conquer Pondicherry on the banks 
of the Vistula. But if the sea powers embrace 
the proposition that has found favor in America, 
and, by the concession of immunity to an 
enemy's commerce in time of war, surrender their 
control of maritime communications, they will 
have abdicated the sceptre of the sea, for they 
will have abandoned one chief means by which 
pressure in one quarter — the sea — balances 



The Problem of Asia 127 

pressure in a remote and otherwise inaccessible 
quarter. Never was moment for such abandon- 
ment less propitious than the present, when the 
determination of influence in Asia is at stake. 

Of the three Teutonic nations — Germany, 
Great Britain, and the United States — the two 
former alone are Immediately interested in the 
Levant ; because, independent of its local re- 
sources, the most vulnerable part of their neces- 
sary communication with the East is there. For 
its protection they have ample naval strength, if 
to the latter adequate local support is given. 
For this there is a nucleus in the central posi- 
tions of Egypt and Cyprus, flanked as these are 
by Aden on the one side, by Malta and Gibral- 
tar on the other ; but there is further needed, 
unquestionably, in the region defined by the 
Black Sea and the Mediterranean, the Caspian 
and the Persian Gulf, that predominance of politi- 
cal influence which rests upon consciousness of in- 
terest implanted in the inhabitants ; upon their 
dependence for security against a dreaded aggres- 
sion ; and upon their sense of benefit, anticipated 
for the future as well as bestowed in the past and 
present. 

Preponderance such as this is conferred by 



128 The Problem of Asia 

commercial enterprises for the development of 
a country, provided the nation by which they are 
undertaken supports them by its power, ex- 
pressed by its wealth, and, in case of necessity, 
by its organized military forces. This is the 
necessary aim of the states which find in the 
Suez Canal their shortest route to the farther 
East. It is more particularly that of Great 
Britain, because she has extensive responsibilities 
in India, which may at any time require the use 
of that shortest route, not for commerce merely, 
but for troops. For the latter purpose, even the 
blocking of the canal, necessitating transshipment 
of troops and goods, would only lessen, not 
destroy, the gain in time over the Cape voyage. 
Germany's interest, while differing in kind and 
in degree, is no less real ; and the irreversible 
fact remains that in the entrance of the Black 
Sea, in the valley of Mesopotamia, and in the 
table-lands of Asia Minor, by virtue of their 
natural features, of their extent, and of their 
central position, rests an ultimate control of the 
eastern Mediterranean, resembling that exercised 
some centuries ago by the Ottoman Turks. In 
the days of sails, however, loss of control did not 
involve exclusion from the best sea road to the 



The Problem of Asia 129 

East, as it now would. The matter is pre- 
eminently the concern of Germany and Great 
Britain; but with theirs is associated that of Italy, 
because France has deliberately cast in her lot 
with Russia, which, by the nature of things, must 
be opposed alike to Latin and Teutonic pre- 
dominance in the regions named. It lies beyond 
the scope of United States' activities, but not 
outside of our lively solicitude. It affects us in 
that it touches to the quick the freedom and 
rapidity of intercourse with the East on the part 
of those whose policy there must run even with 
ours, because of the similarity which characterizes 
alike our strength and our interests. 

To state such a fact as this, with the reasons 
supporting it, is simply to indicate what has been 
before called the long view, the distant goal, 
which, to borrow a simile from the sea, may be 
steered for direct when the wind of circumstances 
is fair ; but with the many complications that 
exist, or that may arise, each generation of states- 
men must contend as the seaman of a few years 
back contended with contrary winds or currents. 
But, while so doing, they will not be helped, but 
hindered, if amid present difficulties they lose 
sight of ultimate aims; as if, to continue our 

9 



I ^o The Problem of Asia 



parallel, the seaman forgot his destination in his 
attention to the wind. Neither in politics nor in 
seamanship can the course at any moment set 
disregard the port desired, nor in either pro- 
fession does neglect of charted data conduce to 
success. 

The people of the United States and' their 
successive governments have not now, nor are 
likely to have hereafter, in connection with the 
future of Asia, to consider any such complicated 
conditions as are presented by the surroundings 
of the Suez Canal and of the Levant. Our diffi- 
culty at present does not proceed from outside 
conditions, but from those internal to our own 
national habits of thought, which in the past 
have been distinctly averse to studying external 
political problems, and even to admitting their 
existence, until pressed home upon our conscious- 
ness by an immediate emergency. Startling as 
has been the effect produced upon public senti- 
ment by the recent exigency which threw the 
Philippines upon our hands, it must be remem- 
bered that a mental temperament evolved and 
ingrained by generations of acceptance, not merely 
inert, but willing, must tend to revert, as passing 
time dulls the sharp impression and lively emo- 



Xhe Problem of Asia 131 

tions that followed the war with Spain. Most 
persons have experienced that, in forming or in 
breaking habits, the first few days under the im- 
pulse of a recent resolve are comparatively easy, 
but that to them succeeds an uninteresting monot- 
onous period of struggle, which too often issues 
in apathetic surrender to former conditions. 
With nations the tendency is the same. To 
resist it, where resistance is necessary, there is 
required a comprehension of facts, and a recogni- 
tion of the duties and interests involved; for in 
these, distant or immediate, are to be found the 
only unanswerable reasons and durable motives 
for national policy. 

The argument of these papers rests upon the 
assumption, now quite generally accepted, that in 
the wide movement of expansion which has char- 
acterized the last quarter of the closing century, 
the Pacific Ocean in general and eastern Asia in 
particular are indicated as the predominant objects 
of interest, common to all nations, both in the 
near and in the remote future. Within the home 
dominions of the European and the American 
powers no marked territorial changes are to be 
expected ; but in the outer world, where con- 
ditions are unsettled, and towards which all eyes 



132 The Problem of Asia 

are turned, regions even extensive derive their 
present significance less from their intrinsic value 
than from their bearing upon access to the central 
^objects named. South Africa, for instance, if 
Mr. Bryce's estimate is correct, receives from its 
great gold-fields but a temporary importance, 
destined soon to disappear by their exhaustion ; 
but as an important outpost on one of the high- 
roads to India and the farther East it has some 
permanent value, which may be more or less, but 
in any event demands consideration. 

The Isthmus of Suez, the Levant, and Persia 
in like manner possess inherent advantages; but 
it has been attempted to show that the enjoy- 
ment of these is a less pressing concern than 
the establishment there of political conditions 
which may affect the future control of the Suez 
route. 

These, and the other factors named, by their 
particular values and their mutual influence, con- 
stitute the strategic features of the general world 
situation involved in the problem of Asia. With 
them nations have to deal in the light of their 
individual interests, checked by due respect to 
the rights of others, measuring the latter not 
exclusively by the rule of conventional ideas, 



The Problem of Asia 133 

essentially transitory, but by the standards of 
eternal justice, which human law can express only 
imperfectly. Nor does the mighty power of 
sentiment fail to find due place in such a scheme ; 
on the contrary, when healthy in character, it 
receives from the considerations that have been 
adduced the intelligent direction which alone 
makes it operative for good. But a very large 
part of a nation's wisdom consists in reinforcing 
its own strength by co-operation with others, 
based upon a substantial identity of interests ; 
and if such identity is found combined with com- 
munity of character and tradition, fostering com- 
munity of ideals, the prospect of continued and 
harmonious co-operation is greatly increased. 
From the sense of such kinship springs a sound 
affection, which redeems interest from much of 
the selfishness associated with the word. Such is 
the triple bond which may unite Germany, Great 
Britain, and the United States ; not in alliance, 
but in solidarity of action, founded upon the rock 
of common interest, and cemented by the ties 
of blood. 

In eastern Asia and the Pacific, although the 
interests of the United States are not identical 
with those of Germany and of Great Britain, they 



1 34 The Problem of Asia 

are alike ; not the same, but similar. Rightly- 
understood, while the three nations will be com- 
petitors, — seekers of the same end, — they should 
not be antagonists. For this reason our sym- 
pathy should go with the others in whatsoever, 
by facilitating their influence, tends towards the 
furtherance of the common policy. This needs 
especially to be understood in matters affecting 
the communications with the East ; for there, the 
effect being indirect, and exercised in quarters 
remote from our own activities, understanding 
and sympathy are less easily aroused, and greater 
attention is required to comprehend. That upon 
such instructed appreciation of facts, when fully 
assimilated, there should follow a certain mutual 
regard, will be natural. Like will to like. 

In return we may claim, and will doubtless 
receive, the same intelligent recognition and sym- 
pathy that we ourselves extend. Upon no other 
condition than a clear perception, where the 
respective paths and duties lie apart, can we reach 
that accord which will enable us to act in concert 
where they coincide. Of the two great lines of 
communication — Suez and Panama — the former, 
as a matter of political action, is wholly theirs ; 
the latter, necessarily ours. If it should ever 



The Problem of Asia 135 

happen that either group come to the help of the 
other on its own ground, either by active inter- 
ference or by unmistakable moral support, — as 
Great Britain is reported to have withstood for- 
eign combination against us at the opening of the 
Spanish war, — it must not be with any idea of 
subsequent claim to local political interference. 
We work together when mutual interest requires, 
but in accordance with well-understood con- 
ditions ; beyond that we stand clear of each 
other's business, knowing that misplaced med- 
dling separates closest friends. 

The writer has too often already discussed, 
directly or incidentally, the strategic situation 
which finds its centre in Panama to repeat the 
same here; but one or two remarks about Mon- 
roe doctrine may be not out of place. Accepting 
as probably durable the new conditions, which 
have so largely modified the nation's external 
policy in the direction of expansion, there is in 
them nothing to diminish, but rather to intensify, 
the purpose that there shall be no intrusion of 
the European political system upon territory 
whence military effect upon the Isthmus of 
Panama can be readily exerted. For instance, 
should a change anticipated by some occur, and 



1 36 The Problem of Asia 

Holland enter the German Empire, it will be 
advantageous that it should even now be under- 
stood, as it then would be necessary for us to 
say, that our consent could not be given to 
Cura9ao forming part of that incorporation. 
The Isthmus of Panama — in addition to its 
special importance to us as a link between our 
Pacific and Atlantic coasts — sums up in itself 
that one of the two great lines of communication 
between the Atlantic and the farther East which 
especially concerns us, and we can no more con- 
sent to such a transfer of a fortress in the Carib- 
bean, than we would ourselves have thought of 
acquiring Port Mahon, in the Mediterranean, as 
a result of our successful war with Spain. 

Consideration of interests such as these must 
be dispassionate upon the one side and upon the 
other ; and a perfectly candid reception must be 
accorded to the views and the necessities of those 
with whom we thus deal. During the process 
of deliberation not merely must preconceptions 
be discarded, but sentiment itself should be laid 
aside, to resume its sway only after unbiassed 
judgment has done its work. The present ques- 
tion of Asia, the evolution of which has taken 
days rather than years, may entail among its 



The Problem of Asia 137 

results no change in old maxims, but it neverthe- 
less calls for a review of them in the light of 
present facts. If from this no difference of 
attitude results, the confirmed resolve of sober 
second thought will in itself alone be a national 
gain. This new Eastern question has greatly 
affected the importance of communications, en- 
hancing that of the shorter routes, reversing 
political and military — as distinguished from 
mercantile — conditions, and bringing again into 
the foreground of interest the Mediterranean, 
thus reinvested with its ancient pre-eminence. 
For the same reason the Caribbean Sea, because 
of its effect upon the Isthmus of Panama, attains a 
position it has never before held, emphasizing the 
application to it of the Monroe doctrine. The 
Pacific has advanced manifold in consequence to 
the United States, not only as an opening mar- 
ket, but as a means of transit, and also because 
our new possessions there, by giving increased 
opportunities, entail correspondingly heavier 
burdens of national responsibility. The isthmian 
canals, present and to come, — Suez and Panama, 
— summarize and locally accentuate the essential 
character of these changes, of which they are at 
once an exponent and a factor. It will be no 



138 The Problem of Asia 

light matter that man shall have shifted the Strait 
of Magellan to the Isthmus of Panama, and 
the Cape of Good Hope to the head of the 
Mediterranean. 

The correlative of these new conditions is the 
comparative isolation, and the dwindled conse- 
quence, of the southern extremes of Africa and 
America, which now lie far apart from the 
changed direction imposed upon the world's 
policies. The regions there situated will have 
small effect upon the great lines of travel, and 
must derive such importance as may remain to 
them from their intrinsic productive value. Does 
there, then, remain sound reason of national 
interest for pressing the Monroe doctrine to the 
extent of guaranteeing our support to American 
states which love us not, and whose geographical 
position, south of the valley of the Amazon, lies 
outside of effective influence upon the American 
isthmus ? Does the disposition to do so arise 
from sound policy, or from sentiment, or from 
mere habit ? And, if from either, do the facts 
justify retaining a burden of responsibility which 
may embarrass our effective action in fields of 
greater national consequence — just as South 
Africa may prove a drain upon Great Britain's 



The Problem of Asia 139 

necessary force about Suez ? ^ In short, while the 
principles upon which the Monroe doctrine reposes 
are not only unimpaired, but fortified, by recent 
changes, is it not possible that the application of 
them may require modification, intensifying their 
force in one quarter, diminishing it in another ? 

Not the least striking and important of the 
conditions brought about by the two contempo- 
rary events — the downfall of the Spanish colonial 
empire and the precipitation of the crisis in east- 
ern Asia — has been the drawing closer together 
of the two great English-speaking nationalities. 
Despite recalcitrant objections here and there by 
unwilling elements on both sides, the fact remains 
concrete and apparent, endued with essential life, 
and consequent inevitable growth, by virtue of a 
clearly recognized community of interest, present 
and future. It is no mere sentimental phase, 
though sentiment, long quietly growing, had 
sufficiently matured to contribute its powerful 

1 Since these words were written the troubles In China, and the 
necessity of Great Britain to draw troops from India for service 
there, have enforced this particular illustration of the military 
embarrassments that may attend widely extended political respon- 
sibility. It is clearly the part of wisdom to retrench these where It 
can honorably be done, limiting minor activities, and concentrat- 
ing purpose upon the necessary and greater external interests of the 
nation. 



140 The Problem of Asia 

influence at the opportune moment ; but here, as 
ever, there was first the material, — identity of 
interest, — and not till afterwards the spiritual, — 
reciprocity of feeling, — aroused to mutual recog- 
nition by the causes and motives of the Spanish 
war. That war, and the occurrences attendant, 
proclaimed emphatically that the two countries, 
in their ideals of duty to the suffering and op- 
pressed, stood together, indeed, but in compara- 
tive isolation from the sympathies of the rest of 
the world. 

The significance of this fact has been accentu- 
ated by the precision with which in the United 
States the preponderance of intelligence has dis- 
cerned, and amid many superficially confusing 
details has kept in mind, as the reasonable guide 
to its sympathies, that the war in the Transvaal 
is simply a belated revival of the issue on which 
our own Revolution was fought, viz., that when 
representation is denied, taxation is violent op- 
pression. The principle is common to Great 
Britain and to us, woven into the web of all her 
history, despite the momentary aberration which 
led to our revolt. The twofold incident — the 
two wars and the sympathies aroused, because in 
both each nation recognized community of prin- 



The Problem of Asia 141 

ciple and of ideals — indicates another great 
approximation to the unity of mankind ; which 
will arrive in due time, but which is not to be 
hurried by force or by the impatience of dreamers. 
The outcome of the civil war in the United States, 
the unification of Italy, the new German Empire, 
the growing strength of the idea of Imperial Fed- 
eration in Great Britain, all illustrate the tendency 
of humanity to aggregate into greater groups, 
which in the instances cited have resulted in 
political combination more or less formal and 
clearly defined. To the impulse and establish- 
ment of each of these steps in advance, war has 
played a principal part. War it was which pre- 
served our Union. War it was which completed 
the political unity of Italy, and brought the 
Germans into that accord of sentiment and of 
recognized interest upon which rest the founda- 
tions and the continuance of their empire. War 
it is which has but now quickened the spirit of 
sympathy between Great Britain and her colonies, 
and given to Imperial Federation an acceleration 
into concrete action which could not otherwise 
have been imparted ; and it needed the stress of 
war, the threat of outside interference with a 
sister nation in its mission of benevolence, to 



142 The Problem of Asia 

quicken into positive action the sympathy of 
Great Britain with the United States, and to 
dispose the latter to welcome gladly and to return 
cordially the invaluable support thus offered. 

War is assuredly a very great evil ; not the 
greatest, but among the greatest which afflict 
humanity. Yet let it be recognized at this mo- 
ment, when the word Arbitration has hold of popu- 
lar imagination, more perhaps by the melody of 
its associations, — like the " Mesopotamia" of the 
preacher, — than by virtue of a reasonable con- 
sideration of both sides of the question, of which 
it represents only one, that within two years two 
wars have arisen, the righteous object of either of 
which has been unattainable by milder methods. 
When the United States went to war with Spain, 
four hundred thousand of the latter's colonial 
subjects had lost their lives by the slow misery 
of starvation, inflicted by a measure — Reconcen- 
tration — which was intended, but had proved in- 
adequate, to suppress an insurrection incited by 
centuries of oppression and by repeated broken 
pledges. The justification of that war rests upon 
our right to interfere on grounds of simple 
humanity, and upon the demonstrated inability 
of Spain to rule her distant colonies by methods 



The P rob lent of Asia 143 

unharmful to the governed. It was impossible 
to accept renewed promises, not necessarily- 
through distrust of their honesty, but because 
political incapacity to give just and good adminis- 
tration had been proved by repeated failures. 

The justification of Great Britain's war with the 
Transvaal rests upon a like right of interference 
— to relieve oppression — and upon the broad 
general principle for which our colonial ancestors 
fought the mother-country over a century ago, 
that " taxation without representation is tyranny." 
Great Britain, indeed, did not demand the 
franchise for her misgoverned subjects, domiciled 
abroad ; she only suggested it as a means where- 
by they might, in return for producing nine- 
tenths of the revenue, obtain fair treatment from 
the state which was denying it to th'em. But be 
it remembered, not only that a cardinal principle 
upon which English and American liberty rests 
was being violated, but that at the time when the 
foreigners were encouraged to enter the Transvaal 
franchise was attainable by law in five years, while 
before the five years had expired the law was 
changed, and the privilege withdrawn by ex post 
facto act. 

In each of these wars one of the two nations 



144 ^'^^ Problem of Asia 

which speak the English tongue has taken a part, 
and in each the one engaged has had outspoken 
sympathy from the other, and from the other 
alone. The fact has been less evident in the 
Transvaal war, partly because the issue has been 
less clear, or less clearly put, chiefly because many 
foreign-born citizens of the United States still 
carry with them the prepossessions of their birth- 
place, rather than those which should arise from 
perception of their country's interest. 

Nevertheless, the foundations stand sure. We 
have begun to know each other, in community 
of interest and of traditions, in ideals of equality 
and of law. As the realization of this spreads, 
the two states, in their various communities, will 
more and more closely draw together in the unity 
of spirit, and all the surer that they eschew the 
bondage of the letter of alliance. To complete 
the group, ethnically and spiritually, there is 
needed the accession of the other branches of the 
Teutonic family, of which the German Empire is 
the great exponent. The race can afford to wait 
for this, and it would certainly be injudicious to 
precipitate its coming by a forcing process ; still, 
it may be remarked that the period of incipiency, 
in which the Anglo-American concord of tendency 



The Problem, of Asia 145 

still remains, is the most favorable moment for the 
entrance of a third party, akin to the other two. 

In conclusion a further remark may be offered. 
Both the signs of the times and obvious motives 
for action point to a probable permanent co- 
operation between the communities which speak 
the English tongue, as well as to a possible, if 
much less assured, coincidence of action with the 
empire the language and people of which come 
from the same stock, though differentiated by 
prolonged separation. But upon the horizon of 
the future may be descried a further omen of 
favorable augury. Various causes have conspired 
during the passing century to depress the visible 
power and influence of the Latin communities in 
Europe, compared to those grouped as the Teu- 
tonic. The unification of Italy is the one con- 
spicuous exception. To this let there be added 
the strategic central position of the new state in 
the Mediterranean, which is to Europe far more 
even than the Caribbean can be to America, and 
also the political considerations which have forced 
her and France into the opposite scales of the 
political balance. 

This attitude of Italy cannot but be fully con- 
firmed by the clear necessity, to Latin and to 



146 The Problem of Asia 

Teuton, to insure that predominance in the 
Levant which is essential to both, because, as sea 
powers, secure use of the Suez Canal is to them 
vital. The significance of this is that, by the 
force of circumstances, Italy, the modern repre- 
sentative of that which is most solid, politically, 
in the original Latin strain, remains in the in- 
timacy of political attachment with the Teutonic 
Powers. This assures us the continued associa- 
tion of that Latin element which has contributed 
so much to the composite result of our Christian 
civilization ; and it still more points on to the 
time when that element, the lineal inheritor of 
Roman greatness, seeing more clearly where its 
interests lie, shall find in Italy the centre and the 
pattern which shall restore it, in renewed glory, 
to the commonwealth of states that already owes 
to it so much. 

Note — Since concluding these papers the writer has met 
these recent words of Sir W. W. Hunter (introduction to 
History of British India), whose regretted death has just 
removed one of the most widely informed students of Asian 
questions : " I hail the advent of the United States in the East, 
as a new power for good, not alone for the island races that 
come under their care, but also in that great settlement of 
European spheres of influence in Asia, which, if we could see 
aright, forms a world problem of our day." 



THE EFFECT OF ASIATIC CONDI- 
TIONS UPON WORLD POLICIES 

SINCE the latest of the preceding papers was 
penned, the speculative forecast of the long 
view in political matters, whether pertaining to 
the nation or to the world, characterized as it in- 
evitably has to be by general and contingent 
estimates, has perforce given place for the 
moment to that narrower but far more vivid 
realization of present transient conditions which 
is imposed by an immediate necessity. A com- 
mon risk of an immense calamity, and a common 
insult received, have forced upon the nations of 
European civilization the recognition of their 
solidarity of interest as towards Asia, in so far, 
that is, as she adheres to her immemorial con- 
servatism, antagonistic to the standards of con- 
duct which we have reached, through an age-long 
progress that is still in continuance. 

In the European family are evidently to be in- 
cluded the people of the United States, as direct 
inheritors therefrom by blood and by accepted 



148 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

tradition, and also, more significantly still, Japan, 
if her claim be admitted, as I think it should be. 
Her accession is indeed the more creditable to 
her national genius, because she enters the group 
in the more difficult and more self-determinative 
character of a convinced, and therefore willing, 
convert ; not ignoring, nor depreciating, her own 
racial distinctiveness and historic past, but having 
the wisdom to see and to associate to herself the 
advantages in a system, not only of practice, but 
of thought as well, foreign to- her previous habits. 
If nothing more than the mere adoption of ob- 
vious material improvements constituted the 
development of Japan, little but apprehension 
could be excited by the aptitudes she has dis- 
played ; but in that she shows herself open as 
well to influence by the ideals, intellectual and 
moral, which by gradual evolution have pos- 
sessed us, there is the better hope. It is well 
worthy of consideration whether we may not see 
in Japan the prepared soil, whence the grain of 
mustard seed, having taken root, may spring up 
and grow to the great tree, the view of which may 
move the continental communities of Asia to seek 
the same regenerating force for their own renewal. 
In this conversion, Japan is repeating the ex- 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 149 

perience of our Teutonic ancestors, as they came 
into contact with the Roman poHty and the 
Christian Church ; with the advantage to her and 
to us that it may reasonably be claimed for our 
present civilization that it is not now in the con- 
dition of incipient political^ and advanced moral, 
decadence which Rome had then reached, and 
which the Christian leaven, though it had begun 
to permeate, had not been able sensibly to retard. 
It is well for us, and for Japan as an influence in 
Asia, that the vitality and virility of the European 
states, including America, are not on the decrease, 
but on the increase, for good and not for evil. 
Her own participation in the spirit of the institu- 
tions of Christendom, as distinguished from its 
exterior manifestations in material results, is yet 
too recent to permit of maturity, — of strength to 
stand alone. She needs still the support and en- 
couragement given by the example of great visible 
success wrought by a quickening spirit, of which 
the secret lies beneath the surface, which can be 
learned and understood by effort, but can be ap- 
propriated, made one's own, only by the disci- 
pline of long practice and the transforming 
power of a new ideal. To such discipline and 
influence Japan must be content to submit her- 



150 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

self — not as to a yoke externally imposed, but 
by her own convinced acquiescence. In do- 
ing this may she have the cordial good-will of 
European governments, looking to see in her, 
not a reproduction of themselves, — which might 
well be but a deceitful imitation, — but an 
Asiatic people renewed from within by the power 
to which we ourselves owe all that we have — or, 
better, are. What maketh one to differ from 
another.'' Of the continued stable progress of 
European states there are two certain indications : 
one, in internal development, in individual 
growth ; the other, in the tendency to externa] 
action, the cessation of which in a healthy, mature 
existence — national or personal — is the precur- 
sor of decay at hand, if not indeed the indication 
of decay already begun. 

In Japan, and as yet in Japan alone, do we 
find the Asiatic welcoming European culture, in 
which, if a tree may fairly be judged by its fruit, 
is to be found the best prospect for the human 
race to realize the conditions most conducive to 
its happiness, — personal liberty, in due combina- 
tion with restraints of law sufficient to, but not in 
excess of, the requirements of the general welfare. 
In this particular distinctiveness of characteristic. 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 151 

which has thus differentiated the receptivity of 
the Japanese from that of the continental Asiatic, 
we may perhaps see the influence of the insular 
environment that has permitted and favored the 
evolution of a strong national personality ; and 
in the same condition we may not err in finding a 
promise of power to preserve and to propagate, 
by example and by influence, among those akin 
to her, the new polity which she has adopted, and 
by which she has profited, afibrding to them the 
example which she herself has found in the 
development of European peoples. The secur- 
ity and isolation of an insular position contrib- 
utes, as nothing else can, to the strength of that 
quality in states which in men we call person- 
ality ; and in states as in men no other quality is 
so influential. Nor should strength of person- 
ality be confounded with immobility, any more 
than firmness is identified with obstinacy. The 
persistence of Asia in its social conservatism 
has been passive ; the strength of the rock it 
may be, but also that of vitality lost in petrifica- 
tion. Rocks neither grow nor flower ; of them- 
selves they change only by decay. 

While the urgency of the present* conditions 

1 Written in early August, 1900. 



152 Eff^(^i of Asiatic Conditions 

in China, in which all the great European 
nations, with ourselves and Japan, have an equal 
concern, is evident, and constrains the action of 
the Powers to a common end, if not too concerted 
action, it is clear enough that only on the surface 
can there seem to be any departure, other than 
temporary, from the policy heretofore pursued by 
each state. In substantia], determinative condi- 
tions there has been no change. The outrage of 
Pekin and the tragedy of the Christian mission- 
aries in China are merely a startling illustration 
of the possibilities which have all along been 
known to lurk under the surface ; the more cer- 
tainly because, as a rule, the Oriental, whether 
nation or individual, does not change. What has 
happened this year in China is just as likely, 
unless fear exercise its constraining force, to recur 
in the East now as it was a thousand years ago, 
because the East does not progress. With our- 
selves also like things, though on a smaller scale, 
happen now, revealing the brute that underlies us 
all ; but they are far less frequent than five cen- 
turies past, they are less condoned, they are not 
the work of governments, nor usually of the more 
rational elements of our communities. They are 
most frequently the offspring of fears rooted in 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 153 

ignorance, also a condition not wholly unfamiliar 
in the more backward parts of civilized Christian 
states ; but in none of these so universal in distri- 
bution, nor in such keeping with the general 
tone of society, from the government down, as in 
the ancient immobile civilizations of Asia. 

Despite recent events in China, therefore, and 
the consequent momentary effect upon national 
action, — the momentary insistence of the short 
view, — there is no necessary change in the con- 
ditions which control national policies ; because 
these, for the reasons given in the preceding 
papers, rest, primarily even, upon permanent 
conditions, chiefly external to China, and com- 
mensurate in extent with the compass of the 
globe from east to west. For the moment, a com- 
mon wrong and a common danger have imposed 
upon the honor of nations the obligation of 
loyal, concerted action to avenge — not to revenge 
— the crime, and to exact surety for the future 
against recurrence ; and for such surety nothing 
equals condign punishment for the past, — a 
lively sense, through experience, of disfavors to 
come in case of repeated offence. While such 
action is being taken, it becomes the nations — as 
it would honorable gentlemen or good citizens — 



154 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

to sink political differences in mutual considera- 
tion, to cease from the competition of interests, 
until the common object demanded by the exi- 
gency of the moment has been accomplished by 
the enforcement of just retribution. But when 
this shall have been done, it will no longer be in- 
cumbent upon them to shut their eyes to facts 
and conditions which have not ceased to exist, 
and have only been temporarily superseded by 
circumstances of more immediate concern. It 
may, however, be profitable not to dismiss the 
recent past from consideration, before first observ- 
ing that it has taught forcibly that mutual rivalry, 
— conflict of interest, — though a part of the 
truth, is but part ; as towards Asia in its present 
conditions, Europe has learned that it has a com- 
munity of interest, as well as a divergence. That 
community of interest may be defined as the 
need of bringing the Asian peoples within the 
compass of the family of Christian states ; not by 
fetters and bands imposed from without, but by 
regeneration promoted from within. This prin- 
ciple, in intellectual appreciation and in practical 
observance, is perfectly compatible with the dili- 
gent safeguarding of individual national interest 
by precautions of whatsoever kind. It looks and 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 155 

works towards a far distant future, in which it 
sees, not a dream, but a goal, directive of a 
general course which meanwhile has to be contin- 
ually accommodated to the exigencies of the pass- 
ing day. 

It is not too much to claim that the govern- 
ment of the United States, representing the 
national sovereignty which by our system rests in 
the great community of individual citizens, has 
not only recognized, but has, in its recent defini- 
tion of its attitude, formulated, in express terms, 
both of these complementary and superficially 
contradictory ideas : the obligation of asserting 
our own rights and protecting our own interests 
against all comers, and, coincidently therewith, 
of respecting, not only the government of China, 
but the national individuality. It is perfectly 
consistent with this view of duty to assist both 
government and people to renew and confirm 
the national life ; not by fussy interference on 
our part, but by generous sympathy, supple- 
mented only as far as necessary by active sup- 
port. And this declaration of our government 
is the more significant, because, while unquestion- 
ably elicited by recent occurrences, it expresses 
as its main motive a purpose of non-interference 



156 -^^(T/ of Asiatic Conditions 

guaranteed by the general assent of our people 
through a long period of past years, to which 
it adds, by way of qualification, definitions of 
new duties and policies consequent upon novel 
conditions recently arisen. Herein is found 
combined, in close approach at least to a due 
proportion, both the idealism of rational states- 
manship, which looks over and beyond the 
passing hour, joined to the practical capacity that 
adapts itself readily to the exigencies of the mo- 
ment, modifying its action by them, as a seaman 
puts the helm down and goes about when an 
uncharted shoal appears ahead, resuming his 
course when he again sees the water clear in the 
direction he means to follow. 

But while all this is true, and of most en- 
couraging omen for the future in that it witnesses 
to the sagacity of our leadership in the past, it 
behooves us of the mass, who ultimately con- 
firm or reject — and who therefore control — the 
action of those in authority, to look particularly to 
the coincidence and sequence of events during the 
few momentous years just gone by, in order that 
by studying the signs of the times we may under- 
stand at once the opportunities they extend and 
the consequent obligations they impose. This 



Effect of Asiatic Conditio7is 157 

we owe, not to ourselves only, but to posterity, 
to which we hold the relation of a trustee to 
a ward. Our leaders, when a call for action 
comes, cannot outstrip by very much the recog- 
nized wishes of the people ; and if these are to 
keep abreast of conditions, they must be at pains, 
not merely to comprehend them as they are, but 
to view them together, and to estimate tendency 
by indications. There is a double process : the 
observation of facts, and the rational deductions 
from them, — the data, and the practical conclu- 
sion drawn, which fixes the broad general lines of 
national determination. These established, and 
the support of the nation thus settled, details 
and daily management may be left to the govern- 
ment, strong before the world in the ascertained 
backing of its followers. The populace, which 
all we in the mass are, is often accused of fickle- 
ness ; it is so, however, not from inherent in- 
stability, but because, where ignorance exists, 
conditions easily assume different appearances, 
and moods waver with the fleeting impressions 
thus produced. The remedy for this is solid 
understanding, obtained by mental toil. 

What are the facts, summarily outlined ? In 
the general progress of events it has come to 



158 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

pass, in this closing year of a century, that the 
commerce of the world — which implies as a 
main incident the utilization of the sea, the chief 
medium of commerce — has become the prize 
for which all the great states of the world are in 
competition. Some, possibly, do not expect ever 
to be leaders ; but all either wish a greater share 
than they now have, or at the least to preserve 
their present proportion. This includes not 
only the power to produce, — mainly an internal 
question, — but the power to exchange freely 
throughout as large a section of the world's 
population as can be reached. In this com- 
petition the most of states are, as a matter of 
policy, unwilling to trust entirely to the opera- 
tion of what we may call — not quite accurately 
— natural forces. The race as hitherto run, or 
the particular conditions of some more favored 
nations, — the United States, for example, so 
richly dowered with the raw material of wealth, 
and with energy to use it, — have resulted in 
giving some a start which puts the remainder at 
a disadvantage, if the issue is left to purely 
commercial causes ; to superiority in quantity or 
quality of production, for instance, or to greater 
ability of management, either in intelligence or 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 159 

economy. Issues determined in this manner are 
more solid, but they require time longer than 
impatience wishes to concede ; hence, the desire 
to hasten prosperity by extending territorial 
control and reserving to one's self commercial 
advantage in the regions mastered. This result 
may be reached either by direct annexation, or by 
preponderant political influence ; but both these 
mean, ultimately, physical force, exerted or poten- 
tial, and this generates opposing force, averse 
from allowing its own people to be deprived by 
such means. Thus competition becomes con- 
flict, the instrument of which is not commercial 
emulation, but military power — land or sea. 

In Europe and in America territorial occupancy 
is now politically fixed and guaranteed, so far as 
broad lines are concerned. Any changes of boun- 
daries now possible, if effected, would produce no 
material result in universal commercial conditions. 
Australasia also is occupied, and the political 
dependence of the islands of the sea has been 
determined by arrangements between civilized 
states, more or less artificial, but internationally 
final. The huge continent of Africa, with ex- 
ceptions small and inconsequential relatively to 
its area, is in the same condition. Its commercial 



i6o Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

relations, therefore, will be prescribed by states 
whose established right to do so will not be con- 
tested. Moreover, in the regard of commerce, 
the fewness and backwardness of its inhabitants 
as yet make Africa a field of minor importance. 

There remains, therefore, Asia, the conditions 
of which from the stand-point of world politics 
have been the subject under investigation in the 
preceding papers. The results of the discussion 
in them conducted are embodied in certain broad 
conclusions which, for the sake of further con- 
sideration, especially as touching the policy of 
the United States, should here be summarized. 
As a consequence of analysis, it was seen that the 
portion of Asia which is as yet in a position of 
political instability, and therefore open to serious 
change by foreign influences, lies mainly between 
30° and 40° north latitude, a belt of six hundred 
miles width, within which are the greater part of 
Turkey in Asia, of Persia, of Afghanistan, and 
of the Chinese Empire, including much of the 
valley of the Yang-tse-Kiang, the great central 
region of China. North and south of the par- 
allels mentioned, a decisively preponderant and 
well established political power rests in the hands, 
respectively, of Russia and of Great Britain ; the 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions i6i 

one dependent mainly upon the land, the other 
upon the sea, for the element of military force 
upon which commercial control depends, when 
exclusive possession is either sought or resisted. 
It was pointed out that the whole question of 
control of commerce with the far East by politi- 
cal intrusion — viewed apart from the question 
of competition by purely commercial methods — 
really turned, in the actual conditions of the 
civilized world, upon the competing forces of 
land and of sea power. In the problem of Asia, 
and within the limits of the continent, these 
factors of military strength find their local repre- 
sentation in Russia and in Great Britain, two 
states which also possess in numbers, relatively 
to the whole world, the greatest army and greatest 
navy, and the commercial methods of which 
present probably the sharpest contrasts between 
freedom of trade and despotic exclusion, either 
by absolute prohibition or insurmountable 
preference. 

It was further argued, however, that the terri- 
torial positions of the other great states, — in- 
cluding the United States, — being exterior to 
the continent, threw them necessarily upon sea 
power, so far as military force in the further 

II 



1 62 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

East is concerned, ranging them therefore along- 
side of Great Britain in general purpose, though 
by no means consequently in formal alliance. 
Not only their methods, but their objects, must 
resemble hers ; for like her, owing to their geo- 
graphical remoteness and imperative interests in 
other parts of the world, they are deficient in 
disposable means for readily projecting their mili- 
tary power inland in China. This defect, though 
obvious enough before, is now receiving convinc- 
ing illustration. It applies less forcibly to the 
United States than to Europe, because by our 
shortest route we are nearer ; because the ocean, 
ministering so powerfully to our defence, liber- 
ates us proportionately for external action ; be- 
cause our numbers are so great and increasing ; 
and because our Asian base in the Philippines, 
being insular, and as distant from Europe as 
China itself, shares the defensive quality of our 
own land. Nevertheless, the width of the 
Pacific, like the distance of South Africa from 
Great Britain, imposes upon such military efforts 
a difficulty which must ever disincline us to them, 
when avoidable. Japan is near, but the limits of 
her area place limits upon population and resultant 
wealth, which must long restrict her power. 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 163 

For the reasons given, the desire of all these 
states must be to effect their commercial aims, not 
by show of military force, still less by violence, 
but by motives of advantage, mutual to them- 
selves and China, of which commerce and its gains, 
though not the worthiest or most benignant result, 
are the most obvious and convincing expression. 
In its train we may hope will follow those moral 
and spiritual ideals, the appropriation of which 
outweighs material well-being in the thought of 
those who believe that man does not live by bread 
only, and in which alone can surely be found the 
happy renewal of Asia. So far therefore as there 
is, or is likely to be, contest for pre-eminence in 
Asia, and specifically in China, the states con- 
cerned — except Russia, and possibly France, 
because of her alliance with Russia — are driven 
perforce to throw themselves chiefly upon sea 
power in the broadest sense of the word. On 
the one side sea power is represented by mari- 
time commerce, by which, and by which alone, 
they expect themselves to benefit, and by reci- 
procity of benefit to influence China. On the 
other side it is by sea power in the military sense, 
— of navies, and of action on the seaboard and 
navigable waters, — that they must maintain their 



164 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

position and rights in the trade of China in case 
the attempt is made, whether by gradual en- 
croachment or by instant violence, to exclude 
them in whole or in part, or to fetter their 
freedom of access. In view of the possibility 
of such an attempt, the military and political 
features of the general situation have been 
discussed in the previous papers, and, with a 
single exception, need no repetition of emphasis 
here. 

That single exception is the stream and valley 
of the Yang-tse-Kiang. Its importance is, in the 
eyes of the writer, sufficiently great, both in the 
commercial and political sense, to warrant some 
further insistence. This need be at no great 
length, just because, when once stated, the con- 
ditions are too clear to require enlargement. 
The stream penetrates far inland, and through a 
controlling part of its course is accessible directly 
from the sea by very large vessels. The valley, 
in its broadest comprehension, depends upon the 
river for Its readiest intercourse with the outside 
world, and it intervenes geographically between 
northern and southern China, whether for distri- 
bution of merchandize or for operations of war. 
Influence established there possesses, conse- 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 165 

quently, the advantages of the interior position, 
and of open and constant communication, through 
the river, with its base — the sea. Preponderant 
commercial importance and a climate compara- 
tively moderate reinforce the advantages resultant 
upon the other conditions, and the whole con- 
stitutes this central, east and west, section of the 
Empire by far the most considerable of all in 
political possibilities. For these reasons the 
outer world of maritime states can most readily 
and beneficently act upon China in this quarter, 
and China herself can hence distribute the bene- 
fits she receives more widely and evenly through- 
out her area. Seed sown here will yield a 
hundredfold, as to thirtyfold elsewhere. 

The expansion of commerce, and the benefit 
resulting therefrom, are, however, only part of 
the objects that necessitate European pressure 
upon the China of our day. The close approach 
and contact of Eastern and Western civilization, 
and the resultant mutual effects, are matters 
which can no longer be disregarded, or postponed 
by any arguments derived from the propriety of 
non-interference, or from the conventional rights 
of a so-called independent state to regulate its 
own internal affairs. They have ceased to be its 



1 66 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

own in the sense of Chinese isolation. Contact 
and interaction have begun ; the process can 
neither be turned back nor arrested. All that 
can profitably be attempted is to direct, by so 
shaping conditions that the higher elements of 
either civilization can act as freely as do the 
motives of pecuniary profit which, though per- 
fectly proper, are lower as well as stronger. As 
the nations have insisted that we shall be allowed 
to sell and to buy, without pretending that the 
Chinese subject should be compelled to trade 
with us, leaving his personal action free to the 
motives of gain that operate with mankind ; so 
they will have to insist that currency be per- 
mitted to our ideas, liberty to exchange thought 
in Chinese territory with the individual Chinaman, 
though equally without any compulsion resting 
upon him to listen even, much less to embrace. 
There is no tenable argument against the latter 
demand that does not equally hold against the 
former. On the contrary, if the advantage to us 
is great of a China open to commerce, the danger 
to us and to her is infinitely greater of a China 
enriched and strengthened by the material ad- 
vantages we have to offer, but uncontrolled in the 
use of them by any clear understanding, much 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 167 

less any full acceptance, of the mental and moral 
forces which have generated and in large measure 
govern our political and social action. Our fail- 
ure perfectly to realize in practice our principles in 
such matters does not invalidate the merit of the 
principle, nor negative the fact that we do derive 
benefit even from imperfect conformity. We 
get less good, doubtless, than we should, and 
could, but for our dereliction from our standards; 
but the appeal can confidently be made to history 
that those faithful to the ideas have been the 
leaven that has worked effectually so far, even 
though much yet remains for it to accomplish. 

It would appear then that the principal objects 
to be kept in view in dealing with the Chinese 
question, are, i. Prevention of preponderant 
political control by any one external state, or 
group of states ; and, 2. Insistence upon the 
open door, in a broader sense than that in which 
the phrase is commonly used ; that is, the door 
should be open not only for commerce, but also 
for the entrance of European thought and its 
teachers in its various branches, when they seek 
admission voluntarily, and not as agents of a for- 
eign government. Not only is the influence of 
the thinker superior in true value to the mer^ 



1 68 Effect of Asiatic Co7iditions 

gain of commerce, but also there is actual dan- 
ger to the European family of nations, in case 
China should develop an organized strength 
whence has been excluded the corrective and 
elevating element of the higher ideals, which in 
Europe have made good their controlling influ- 
ence over mere physical might. Rationally, from 
this point of view, there is much that is absurd 
in the outcry raised against missionary effort, as 
a thing incompatible with peaceful development 
and progress. Christianity and Christian teach- 
ing are just as really factors in the mental and 
moral equipment of European civihzation as any 
of the philosophical or scientific processes that 
have gone to build up the general result. Opin- 
ions differ as to the character and degree of the 
Influence of Christianity, in estimates qualitative 
and quantitative, but the fact of influence can- 
not be denied. From the purely political stand- 
point Christian thought and teaching have just 
the same right — no less, if no more — to admis- 
sion into China as any other form of European 
activity, commercial or intellectual. Nor is the 
fact of offence taken by classes of Chinamen a 
valid argument for exclusion. The building of a 
railroad is not a distinctively Christian act, but it 



Effect of Asiatic Cojtditions 169 

offends large numbers of Chinese, who are never- 
theless - compelled to acquiesce if their govern- 
ment consent ; whereas the consent of the 
Chinese government to missionary effort will 
compel no Chinaman to listen to a Christian 
teacher. Every step forward in the march that 
has opened China to trade has been gained by 
pressure; the most important have been the re- 
sult of actual war. Commerce has won its way 
by violence, actual or feared ; thought, both 
secular and Christian, asks only freedom of 
speech. 

Conceding the critical importance of the present 
moment in the history of the world, admitting 
that movements intellectual and political, long in 
progress in China, are now reaching a turning 
point determinative of great future issues, it is 
essential to the United States that her individual 
citizens should seriously consider, and within 
themselves settle, the part the country ought to 
play, and the preparation necessary to that part. 
There is the preparation of purpose, and there is 
the preparation of power. Preparation of purpose 
is a mental and moral process, resulting in convic- 
tion as to right and wrong, followed by the con- 
scious adoption of a course of action, — the 



170 Effect of Asiatic Conditio7is 

formation of a policy, — general in outline but 
definite in object. Preparation of power is a 
material act, and consists of two correlative 
elements, viz. : i. Provision of force, to the 
extent needed ; and, 1. Curtailment of obligation, 

— of responsibility, — actual or contingent, pres- 
ent or promissory, in direction and in amount, 
beyond that which is demanded by the clear 
necessities of the political conditions. In short, 
economy of exertion, because it husbands strength, 
is the complement of the process of development 
which creates or augments strength. 

Our policy and our power, therefore, are the 
two leading lines upon which consideration and 
reflection must concentrate their energy. As 
towards the immense world question, commensu- 
rate only with international relations in their 
widest sense, of which China is the central issue, 
the general world conditions upon which policies 
should turn have been the subject of study in the 
preceding papers. The elements of the problem, 

— of the political strategy, — as seen by the 
author, have in them been indicated. As towards 
China herself, and, in particular, the recent 
astounding events have drawn from our govern- 
ment a declaration, of purpose and of principles, 



Effect of Asiatic Co7iditions 171 

which may fairly be said to represent a policy 
realized in our past action, and to affirm it for the 
present and future. Our people have not now 
to evolve a policy, but to decide whether that of 
the past justifies itself to their conscience, to their 
sense of right and wrong, and embodies their 
purpose of the present. This still existent 
policy may, I apprehend, fairly be stated to be the 
determination to have equal commercial privileges, 
and withal to respect to the utmost the integrity 
of Chinese territory, and the individuality of the 
Chinese character in shaping its own govern- 
ment and polity. We meddle not with their 
national affairs until they become internationally 
unendurable. 

But in the very enunciation of this policy we 
are confronted by the fact that it is diverse from 
that of some other states, as shown by their acts 
in special instances, and plausibly to be inferred 
from their general course and obvious tendency. 
Such divergence is not always necessarily a cause 
for alarm, but it is for watchfulness ; and it must 
be taken into account, as an element influential 
upon our own policy, not perhaps in general con- 
ception or as towards China, but in the matter of 
deciding upon the preparation we need, and the 



172 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

freehandedness to be maintained in external rela- 
tions of lesser importance. Needless external 
preoccupations might greatly embarrass us, in case 
divergence from our policy should develop into 
opposition to our interests, or to those of civili- 
zation in general. 

Briefly, we cannot be sure of the commercial 
advantages known as the " open door," unless we 
are prepared to do our share in holding it open. 
We cannot count upon respect for the territory 
of China, unless we are ready to throw, not only 
our moral influence, but, if necessity arise, our 
physical weight into the conflict to resist an ex- 
propriation, the result of which might be to 
exclude our commerce and neutralize our influ- 
ence. Our influence we believe, — and have a 
right to believe, — is for good ; it is the influence 
of a nation which respects the right of peoples to 
shape their own destinies, pushing even to exag- 
geration its belief in their ability to do so. But it 
is vain to hope for national influence in China, 
unless representative Chinese recognize — not 
only integrity of our purpose towards themselves, 
but — our evident abihty and intention to support 
them against demands which overpass reasonable 
limits, having regard not to our own immediate 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 173 

interests only, but to the general interest of the 
world, from which we cannot dissociate ourselves 
in this matter without ultimate national injury. 
Such limits may not be capable of precise defini- 
tion, before an occasion arises ; but that a general 
principle, satisfactory as a guide in our own 
general action, and for general understanding by 
others, can be affirmed, is evidenced by the clear 
tenor of the recent declaration of our government 
communicated to foreign capitals. 

To those who are able to receive it, — and I 
believe there are many, — I would say that it is 
impossible for our government — which is our 
people — to allow the question of China, in the 
stage which it has now reached, to drift at the 
sport of circumstances. That China should 
develop normally from within, by willing accep- 
tance and gradual appropriation of sounder politi- 
cal views and higher intellectual ideals, is right. 
Nations cannot be born, or reborn, in a day ; nor 
can? the raw material of individual men, per- 
sonally excellent, be manufactured into a living 
national organism by mere external pressure. 
Growth processes are from within and presume 
antecedent vitality, inherent or imparted. But 
vigor for self-renewal, or to receive and assimilate 



1 74 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

nutriment from without, unforced or unaided, 
does not constitute the condition of China to-day, 
as it did constitute, approximately at least, that 
of Japan a half-century ago ; though even Japan 
has owed to external pressure the opportunity of 
which she has richly availed herself, but which 
she certainly did not seek of her own initiative. 
China not only has repelled, as Japan once did, 
but after long years of contact and opportunity 
she continues to repel the admission of the leaven 
which alone can permeate and vivify her dead- 
ness. The reactionary movement in progress at 
the present moment^ aims at severing communi- 
cation with the only possible source of real life. 
It is permissible, nay, incumbent, to resist it ; to 
insist. In the general interest, by force if need be, 
that China remain open to action by European 
and American processes of life and thought. She 
may not — cannot — be forced to drink, but she 
must at least allow the water to be brought 
to her people's doors. If the United States 
stands wholly aside, this work will be done 
all the same, lacking only our Individual con- 
tribution to it. Can we without responsibility to 

1 Written August lo, 1900. The relief force reached Pekin 
August 15. 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 175 

God and man decline our aid, which our respect 
for nationality and personality — carried at times 
to an excess even absurd — will render especially 
disinterested, as well as especially helpful through 
the confidence it commands? 

The part offered to us is great, the urgency is 
immediate, and the preparation made for us, 
rather than by us, in the unwilling acquisition of 
the Philippines, is so obvious as to embolden 
even the least presumptuous to see in it the 
hand of Providence. Our highest authority, 
while rebuking rash judgment, rebukes also with 
at least equal severity the failure to read the 
signs of the times. This, therefore, we must 
seek to do. Our decision is momentous, in view 
of the possibilities involved in acceptance or in 
refusal, and of the wide range of interests and 
duties to be considered and co-ordinated in count- 
ing the cost of either course. Decision is the 
preparation of purpose ; the cost embraces both 
the preparation of power and all that is involved 
in its future exertion, as far as we can foresee. 
And in order to the due running of the race before 
us, to the full exhibition of strength at decisive 
points, it is necessary to lay aside every unneces- 
sary weight, to put away from ourselves, even at 



176 Effect of Asiatic Conditio7is 

some sacrifice, cherished prepossessions, long- 
standing prejudices, which, if retained, would 
futilely disseminate our force. What One has 
called the single eye, and Napoleon phrased as 
exclusiveness of purpose, is a necessary condition 
of effective action. 

Assuming our resolution to maintain our com- 
mercial rights and to exert influence in China, by 
encouraging and supporting native action, though 
not by any assumption of authority or acquisition 
of territory, the valley of the Yang-tse is clearly 
indicated as the central scene of our general in- 
terest, however we may be momentarily diverted, 
as by the recent occurrences in Pekin, to action 
different in character and direction from our fixed 
usual policy. The open door, both for com- 
merce and for intellectual interaction, should be 
our aim everywhere in China ; but it can most 
easily be compassed in this middle region, and 
there find the surest foundation for impression 
upon other parts, because there sea power can 
most solidly establish itself. The very fact that 
sea-going steamers can go as far as Hankow, six 
hundred miles from the sea, and thence take car- 
goes, without shifting bulk, to any great port of 
the world, shows without further insistence that 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 177 

this valley is the decisive field where commerce, 
the energizer of material civilization, can work to 
greatest advantage, and can most certainly receive 
the support of the military arm of sea power, 
which, where force enters into world politics, is 
the main reliance of the Teutonic peoples. It 
must also for some time to come be the main 
reliance of the Chinese people in resistance to 
foreign domination, as distinguished from legiti- 
mate foreign influence. 

Our attention in the farther East thus local- 
ized, concentrated, for the very reason that effort 
seeking to cover a given area works more advan- 
tageously from a centre than by dispersion at 
points of a circumference, we shall find ourselves 
one of several powers rivals in interest, — compet- 
itors, — with the danger, incident to competition, 
of degenerating into antagonism. The fact does 
not call upon us to circumscribe our independ- 
ence of action by formal alliance with one, or 
declared opposition to another; but it does 
demand that we rid our minds of the caricature 
of independence, which receives frequent expres- 
sion in words, probably because it reflects a con- 
dition of our popular consciousness. Each man 
and each state is independent just so far as there 



178 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

is strength to go alone, and no farther. When 
this limit is reached, if farther steps must be 
made, co-operation must be accepted. In that 
case the only certain foundation for harmony of 
action and continuance of relations is to be 
found in common interests and common habits 
of thought. Where the latter are traditional, 
striking their roots deep in the past, community 
of ideas and identity of action in matters of right 
and wrong become most probable. Of all the 
nations we shall meet in the East, Great Britain 
is the one with which we have by far the most 
in common in the nature — not in the identity — 
of our interests there, and in our standards of 
law and justice. Co-operation, therefore, is indi- 
cated ; but it is a mistake to assume that co-oper- 
ation, which act by act is voluntary, necessitates 
or implies abnegation of that moral responsibility, 
involved in freedom of choice at each moment, in 
the retention and observance of which alone is 
real independence of action preserved, and which 
a treaty — of alliance, or of arbitration. If un- 
conditioned — may impair culpably, because it 
pledges the unknown future. Hereabouts lies 
the fallacy of much popular oratory on more 
than one subject. 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 179 

To assure the open door in its fullest sense, 
requires power in evidence, not merely localized in 
China itself, but asserted over the maritime lines 
of communication ; especially over the shortest. 
This inevitable extension of effort shows at once 
the necessity of co-operation among states ; of 
division of labor, mutually, if tacitly, recognized. 
In the antagonism of policy between land and 
sea power which now exists, no one nation of 
those dependent upon the latter is competent to 
develop and sustain the whole gigantic scheme. 
Narrowed down even to the decisive points, 
which all control must be in politics as in war, the 
task overpasses the strength of any one state. 

In final analysis the great lines of communica- 
tion to the farther East are two, from Europe 
and from America. The former is by way of 
Suez, the latter by the Pacific ; but the present 
distribution of our national wealth, and its com- 
munications with our seaboard, require, and 
doubtless will insure, the opening of access for 
our Atlantic slope by way of the Central Ameri- 
can Isthmus. In that case the American line of 
communications to China may be correctly said 
to be by Nicaragua, — or Panama, — as that 
of Europe is by way of Suez ; and as the 



i8o Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

Mediterranean, Egypt, Asia Minor, the Red 
Sea, and Aden, designate the points decisive of 
control by the one route, so do the Caribbean 
Sea and the continental surroundings of the 
future canal, with Hawaii and the Philippines, fix 
those of the other, the importance of which to 
ourselves make it our especial interest. 

That it should be our special interest, however, 
is not all. It is also our charge, from the stand- 
point of international relations, as well as from 
that of our duty to the present and future of our 
own country. I do not mean here to affirm an 
obligation of benevolence to other nations, strong 
enough to take care of themselves. I mean, on 
the contrary, that because of great common inter- 
ests — with Great Britain especially, though not 
solely — in the Pacific commerce of the future, 
and in the nature of the development of China, 
we need to receive and to give support, and should 
be ashamed to receive more than we give, in pro- 
portion to our means and opportunities. Grad- 
ually, as we have grown in strength, we have 
made good our claims to preponderant consider- 
ation in the Caribbean and at the Isthmus; we 
have obtained acquiescence where we once met 
opposition — from Great Britain herself. Is this 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions i8i 

a mere selfish, and in so far barren, triumph of 
national diplomacy, or an opportunity involving 
further duty ? Certainly the latter ; not because 
British welfare, regarded alone, is a concern for 
our action, but because community of interests, 
and duty to the world's future, centring about 
China, impose mutual support. This cannot be 
assured in matters pertaining to the East merely 
by accord localized there. It requires also such 
a grip upon our special great line of communica- 
tions thither, from both our coasts, as shall give 
assurance that the force of our distant action can- 
not be impaired by any weakening of a link 
essential to its continuity. 

From the conditions, we must be in effective 
naval force in the Pacific. We must similarly be 
in effective force on the Atlantic ; not for the 
defence of our coasts primarily, or immediately, 
as is commonly thought, — for in warfare, how- 
ever much in defence of right, the navy is not 
immediately an instrument of defence but of 
offence, — but because the virtual predominance 
of our naval power in the Caribbean is essential 
to preserve the use of the Isthmian Canal to our 
commerce, and to give our navy quick access to 
the Pacific. 



1 82 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

We are confronted, in short, with the necessity 
of providing a weight that shall be decisive — or 
at least shall contribute largely to decisiveness — 
in both the Pacific and the Caribbean. It is 
obvious that, to be decisive, weight is not always 
necessarily a great weight, but depends upon the 
already existing relative conditions of the oppos- 
ing scales. The conditions now, however, are not 
such that an inconsiderable naval force on our 
part can secure for us the consideration we natu- 
rally think due us in the councils of the world, 
nor discharge the obligations incumbent upon us 
as a member of the family of states, whose inter- 
ests, often conflicting, must be adjusted on a 
basis of righteousness, and so maintained by 
demonstration of power. Our calculations must 
also take into account the fact that, when the 
canal is in operation, our Pacific and Atlantic 
fleets can communicate for mutual support only 
by an artificial route, too easily interrupted. 
This loses us in great measure the military ad- 
vantage of an interior line, which a natural strait 
would give ; the advantage by which a force cen- 
trally situated operates eff'ectually in two direc- 
tions, reinforcing the situation in the one or the 
other, as needed. Thus a navy of consideration 



Effect of Asiatic Conditio7zs 183 

at Malta can act towards Gibraltar or Suez — the 
way is open as far as the water is concerned, the 
question therefore is one of force only ; but at 
Suez the power to act towards both India and 
the Mediterranean depends not upon military 
force alone, but upon the canal being open. 
Suez, however, being on the natural level 
throughout, is much less easily susceptible of 
prolonged interruption than a canal dependent 
upon locks, as any Central American canal 
must be. 

As, therefore, for the exertion of our commer- 
cial and moral influence in the East it is of press- 
ing importance to bring our Atlantic slope into 
close communication by a canal at the Isthmus, 
— which will serve our material interests, more- 
over, in other ways, — so it is of equal impor- 
tance that we assure the use of the canal, once 
there, by the solidity of our naval position in the 
Caribbean. But, as this is a military question, 
let there here be interposed the caution, than 
which none is more clearly written on the pages 
of military history, that substantial security does 
not mean absolute security. There is no such 
thing in war as absolute certainty; risk cannot be 
eliminated wholly from any military situation. 



184 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

whether of passive defence or of offensive action. 
I suppose it is much the same in all callings ; 
but for war certainly a reasonable preponderance 
of chances in one's favor is all that can be 
assured. Napoleon has asserted this in almost 
identical words in one of his pithy phrases. 

May we then dismiss the effort for probable 
security because we cannot have absolute ? Do 
men do so in any circumstances ? Certainly not 
successful men. Let us then consider what con- 
ditions, if realized, would give the best prospect 
of preserving to our use the Isthmian Canal. 
The first, without which all others are of no avail, 
is our own strength, demonstrated by a fleet 
available for immediate action there, of power 
great enough — not to overcome any naval force 
that might conceivably be brought against us, for 
that would be beyond our means, but — to make 
it evidently inexpedient, politically, for the great- 
est navy to contest our predominance in the 
Caribbean. This insures us, by a single military 
provision, a primacy of consideration which will 
result in the prevalence of our policy and, in 
direct consequence of our policy so maintained, 
in the security of the canal ; which, it should be 
repeated; is an essential element of our influence 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 185 

in the Pacific and in China. The provision of 
the fleet, however, is the first step, without which 
the others cannot follow. 

Now the only Power that in the past has been 
seriously disposed to contest this preponderance 
has been Great Britain. The West Indies and 
South America have till very lately been with 
her controlling objects of commercial, and there- 
fore of political, consideration. This attitude 
has been largely traditional from the eighteenth 
century, when the sugar of the one was a chief 
item of her trade, and the once Spanish colonies 
of the other presented a coveted field for exploi- 
tation, estimated then much as China is now. 
Forty or fifty years ago, therefore, we were 
directly antagonized in the Caribbean by the 
nation having the strongest navy in the world, 
and convinced that our policy — in brief the 
Monroe Doctrine — was irreconcileable with her 
interests. The events of the last half century 
have changed this, and, what is more important. 
Great Britain, though within but a very few 
years, now recognizes the change. The West 
Indies, which in the opening years of this expiring 
century entertained one-fourth of British com- 
merce, are become a factor relatively insignifi- 



1 86 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

cant ; and while South America has not wholly 
disappointed the hopes of former days, its devel- 
opment has not kept pace with the interests that 
have grown up elsewhere. 

We find, therefore, on the part of the greatest 
of naval states, a politic disposition to acquiesce 
in our naval predominance in the Caribbean ; 
and this disposition is bound to increase, because 
it rests securely upon two facts that will remain 
permanent for a time far beyond the horizon 
of this generation. These facts are, first, that 
Great Britain's interests elsewhere are so great 
that she must unload herself of responsibility for 
the Caribbean, and, second, that some of the 
principal among those major interests of hers are 
so evidently coincident in character with ours, 
that we cannot but follow, though perfectly in- 
dependently, the same general line of policy, and 
in so doing support her. It is, therefore, her 
interest that we remain strong, and since an 
essential element of our strength is in the Carib- 
bean, we may prudently reckon upon the moral 
support of Great Britain in any political clash 
with other nations there, unless we take a stand 
morally indefensible. 

There is no reason seriously to doubt that just 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 187 

such support was given during the late war with 
Spain. On the contrary, the writer has been 
assured, by an authority in which he entirely 
trusts, that to a proposition made to Great Brit- 
ain, to enter into a combination to constrain the 
use of our power, ■ — as Japan was five years ago 
constrained by the joint action of Russia, France, 
and Germany, — the reply was not only a passive 
refusal to enter into such combination, but an 
assurance of active resistance to it, if attempted. 
If actions speak louder than words, such a fact 
outweighs paragraphs of demonstration of future 
probabilities, based though this be upon the clear- 
est arguments from existing conditions. Call such 
an attitude friendship, or policy, as you will, — 
the name is immaterial ; the fact is the essential 
thing and will endure, because it rests upon solid 
interests. Not every saying of Washington is as 
true now as it was when uttered, and some have 
been misapplied ; but it is just as true now as 
ever, that it is vain to expect governments to act 
continuously on any other ground than national 
interest. They have no right to do so, being 
agents and not principals. 

Moral support, expressed in popular bias, and 
resting upon community of interest and of politi- 



1 88 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

cal standards, is a weighty political factor. It 
carries with it not only the force of opinion, but 
uncertainty on the part of an antagonist as to 
whether moral support may not become material ; 
whether the cold friend may not at short notice 
become the hot ally. Great Britain no longer 
has occasion to feel antagonism towards us in the 
Caribbean, and any traditional sentiment of that 
sort which may remain in her older men must 
disappear from popular consciousness, because 
contradicted by the facts. Antagonism, resting 
once on real opposition of interest, is being dis- 
placed by realization of the community of interest 
known as the open door, and of community in 
political principles, the outgrowth of traditions 
which, having been not stagnant but progressive, 
have now by evolution reached the stage of wil- 
ling the integrity of China and its free develop- 
ment from within. From this, it is but a short 
step to a national support of China against for- 
eign domination, or annexation, or partition, — a 
policy identical in principle with the Monroe 
Doctrine ; but to take this, either state needs a 
reasonable security of the other's co-operation. 
As far as community of interest and of standard 
goes, the assurance is there, nor is the evidence 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 189 

of national feeling absent ; but there is wanting 
on our part the assurance of the national purpose, 
— not by compact, but by action, — of which 
action a first instalment is the provision of force. 
We cannot expect the nations, friendly or the 
reverse, to take our purpose seriously, unless 
they see us firm in provision as well as in speech. 
It may be objected, in Great Britain as well as 
here, that if there be among some of our citizens 
a clear appreciation of the advantage of common, 
though mutually independent, action, there is in 
very many of us a loudly expressed bitterness of 
feeling towards her ; and that this will impede, 
if not prevent, mutual support in external matters 
of common interest. It is possible to admit the 
fact of the bitterness expressed, without accepting 
the conclusion. Sentiment is mighty, mightier 
at moments than interest ; but where interest 
rests on real and permanent conditions, and senti- 
ment on impressions which are transient and 
unreal, there can be no doubt which will prevail 
with the victory ever won by truth. The interest 
is real. The open door expresses a policy as 
important to us as to Great Britain ; more im- 
portant to us than to her, if our export trade take 
on the superior proportions anticipated by some 



190 Eff^<^i of Asiatic Conditio7ts 

serious thinkers. The standards also really exist. 
We, like her, and she, like us, at the present time 
shrink from partition and annexation as evils , — 
evil in principle, and evil in the consequent 
burden entailed. Despite current prejudice dili- 
gently fostered, it will at no distant day be recog- 
nized also by our people that the annexation of 
the Boer republics was a measure forced upon 
Great Britain, as the annexation of the Philip- 
pines has been upon ourselves, and as was the 
annexation, against its will, a generation ago, of the 
Southern Confederacy ; regardless of the fact that 
it then possessed all the elements of a de facto 
government, resting upon the willing allegiance of 
the great majority of the inhabitants. The senti- 
ment in the United States which to-day withstands 
movement in the direction of our common interests 
is partly traditional, like that which survives in 
Great Britain concerning the Caribbean ; partly, 
as is notorious, it is the transference to United 
States politics of foreign prepossessions by citizens 
foreign-born, in their own persons or in those of 
their parents. Such sentiment is transient ; for 
it is unreal in that it does not correspond to the 
facts of the United States' interests. A sagacious 
statesman will see in this the assurance of the 



Effect of Asiatic Condi tio7zs 191 

ultimate trend of sentiment. But such an one 
will also reckon, with very different certitude, 
upon our national backwardness to provide the 
organized force, — especially the naval, — with- 
out which the attempted expression of national 
will, on emergency, becomes the clumsy and 
abortive gestures of a flabby and untrained giant. 

To pronounce definitely upon the amount of 
such force is either to utter a dogmatic personal 
opinion, or to enter upon a prolonged technical 
discussion unsuitable to this paper and occasion. 
To indicate its general character and its points of 
application is another matter ; for quality, as 
distinct from quantity, rests upon general con- 
siderations, which, being at once few and obvious, 
may be readily summarized and, whether accepted 
or rejected, readily understood. 

The Atlantic, north of the equator, is the ocean 
of that old community of European civilization 
upon which, from our point of view, the welfare 
of humanity rests. Interior to this community 
the boundaries of the great states are, in leading 
outline, so fixed and recognized that, — whatever 
clashes may arise over external interests, — there 
is no probability of large changes of territorial pos- 
session and consequent local political control. 



192 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

The Pacific is different ; it is a new-comer into 
broad world interests. As the Atlantic some four 
centuries ago, with the widening outlook that fol- 
lowed the discovery of America and of the Cape 
of Good Hope, succeeded to the central position 
once held by the Mediterranean, so now the last 
half century — it is scarcely more — has received 
in the course of events its discovery, its revela- 
tion, of conditions which existed indeed, as did 
America before Columbus, but had been as yet 
unknown, because unappreciated. And upon the 
discovery has followed the apprehension of what 
is to happen when the barriers are breaking down 
between two civilizations which stand upon such 
different levels — politically, economically, so- 
cially, and in standards moral and intellectual — 
as do the West and the East. 

In estimating the issue, it is difficult to ex- 
aggerate the importance, as a factor, of that par- 
ticular type of political freedom, of aptitude for 
self-government, and of tenacious adherence to 
recognized law — by which alone freedom and 
self-government consist with orderly progress — 
that has been embodied in the race loosely called 
Anglo-Saxon. This type has proved its vitality 
and its worth by continuous existence and con- 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 193 

sistent development, from the home of its origin, 
on the continental shores of the North Sea, 
throughout its abode in Great Britain, and in its 
subsequent transplantation to the over-sea coun- 
tries which have now become the United States 
and the self-governing colonies of the British 
Empire. These traditions, remaining ever the 
same in general idea, have been translated into 
particular action by the hundred successive genera- 
tions that have applied them to their own con- 
ditions, as these varied from age to age. Thus 
progressing, they have in our day reached a 
development, in principles and methods, the due 
influence of which upon the future, by consistent 
political support, is the charge ahke of Great 
Britain and the United States. For, play with 
words and facts as we may, assert the composite 
character of the population of the United States, 
— which none will deny, — the truth remains 
that the strength of our people as of Great 
Britain, — herself a congeries of races, — rests in 
the common political and legal tradition, pre- 
served and intensified under conditions of separa- 
tion nothing less than insular, which both have 
inherited by unbroken transmission from the 
old home, where the forefathers of the one race 

13 



194 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

dwelt when history first knew them. This type, 
by its virile power of adaptation, has not only 
predominated over, but absorbed and assimilated, 
all other social and racial types with which it has 
been brought into political association. Many 
magicians stood before Pharaoh, but Aaron's rod 
swallowed all the others. 

To the full expression of this political force, 
great alike in its nobility and in its vitality, the 
United States owes to mankind her due contribu- 
tion ; for in it is one of the greatest hopes — in 
our own national opinion the very greatest hope 

— of humanity. A great door and an effectual 
is here open to us, and it is needless to say that 
there are many adversaries. And if to such con- 
tribution is essential the dismissal of old pre- 
possessions, the recognition of facts hitherto not 
understood, resulting in a co-operation which 
shall not sacrifice independence of conscience by 
pledges, — whether of alliance or of arbitration, 

— this price should be cheerfully paid ; as should 
be also that of any other exertion within our 
reasonable power to make. 

The sphere for our external exertion in this 
cause is clearly indicated as the Pacific and the 
East, incident to which is predominance in the 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 195 

Caribbean by a navy of such size that, with Great 
Britain eliminated as a probable opponent, — 
because of the radical changes in world conditions 
and of the coincidence of our interests with hers 
in the great questions of the near future, — and 
with her support indicated to the extent of the 
interests common to her and to us, we need have 
no substantial reason to apprehend interference 
there. The consideration here advanced bears so 
heavily upon the national advantage, in the 
matter not only of security but of expense in 
Reeded preparation, — if Great Britain should be 
considered as a probable enemy instead of a 
probable ally, — that it becomes a matter of 
patriotic duty to every citizen to consider whether 
he does well to cherish old animosities ; to reflect 
whether the period in which, historically, these 
prejudices have their rise is not now as wholly 
past as the voyage of Columbus; or whether, 
perchance, they are simply transplanted to our 
soil from Europe by a process — in that case 
most misnamed — of naturalization. It is no 
true naturalization which grafts upon our politics 
sentiments drawn from abroad, and foreign to 
our interests or duties. 

Relations between Great Britain and ourselves 



196 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

that rested upon mutual understanding of com- 
mon interests and common traditions would far 
exceed in potential force any formal alliance, — 
which for many reasons would be greatly to be 
deprecated. The perception of community of 
interest involves also inevitably the recognition of 
opposition, not only in form, but in spirit, inher- 
ent in other political systems with which in Asia 
we shall be brought into contact, — possibly into 
collision. The two considerations — coincidence 
of interest on the one side, and opposition of 
political methods on the other — would each have 
a just weight in determining the measure of our 
naval preparation, and would modify seriously, in 
the writer's apprehension, the application of the 
principle by him stated only four years ago, by 
which the amount of our naval force should be 
determined.-^ The principle is not affected. If 
correct then, as I believe, it is correct now ; but 
there is in my mind no question that national 
policies have since then so developed, and inter- 
national relations consequently so changed, that 
application to the new conditions will necessarily 
give a new result. We are forced now, in con- 
sidering the national attitude proper to be as- 

^ Interest of American Sea Power, pp. 1 79-1 81. 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 197 

sumed, to dismiss from mind the nearer past, — 
because, from its very closeness, it confuses the 
sense of proportion, — and to throw ourselves 
back upon the remote past, upon the origins 
of institutions, and upon the national spirit 
embodied in them, in order to recognize what 
are our real affinities, which should rightly and 
profitably direct our action in the immediate 
future. 

In our calculations as to our necessary pre- 
parations under such conditions, it would not be 
presuming an unfair burden to Great Britain to 
reckon in part upon her supreme navy as a factor 
in a possible co-operation, and division of labor. 
It would be so only if we grudged our due pro- 
portion of a naval effort tending to the common 
advantage. Community of interest in objects 
implies mutual interest in each other's strength. 
To Great Britain the navy she maintains is indis- 
pensable to national safety, to the British Islands 
as such, and to the integrity of the widely dis- 
persed British Empire. Whatsoever relations to 
other states she may temporarily entertain, this 
she must always have ; while on the other hand 
she is at no such need of internal development as 
still weighs heavily upon our national resources. 



igS Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

Contrary to her, we need not to fear vital injury 
by an external blow to our communications with 
the world. For simple internal safety and main- 
tenance we can depend upon ourselves, and we 
have no distant possessions vital to our mere ex- 
istence, however useful they may be to our exter- 
nal development and influence. But in the great 
future of the world to which our political condi- 
tions seem to call upon us to co-operate, for the 
good of both and of the world at large, each is 
interested to see the other grow in strength. 
There need, therefore, be no captiousness on the 
part of Great Britain, nor any mortification on 
our part, if the proportions of military navy 
which we could contribute to the common end 
be modest, compared to hers, and that we devote 
resources to a development of national internal 
vigor which will inure to the common strength. 
The two efforts will be not contradictory, but 
complementary. 

Our fleet must, however, be adequate, keeping 
in view the amount of support to which Great 
Britain would be limited by her extensive respon- 
sibilities. It must be adequate, considering those 
who might oppose us, whether in the East or in 
the Caribbean. It must be adequate, considering 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 199 

that on account of our merely national interests, 
as represented by our two ocean coasts, we must 
be able to exert naval power in both the Pacific 
and the Atlantic, remembering, also, that the 
future canal, while facilitating support between 
our fleets on either side, is nevertheless open to 
interruption by force or treachery. As regards 
other nations, the principle before alluded to is 
not aifected ; it is merely modified by the differ- 
ing positions now occupied by Great Britain and 
by ourselves, brought about chiefly by the recog- 
nition of changes and events in the East. 

Insistence, however, should be laid upon one 
element of naval strength, which in mention 
is so usually omitted that it is reasonable to infer 
that it is most inadequately appreciated. We 
hear much of ships built, and of the mechanical 
results attained in them, as evidenced by speed, 
gun-power, armor, etc. ; but we hear rarely of 
our great deficiency in trained men to run these 
machines in their various forms, — for a gun is a 
machine quite as really as the propelling power 
of a vessel. To meet this defect, which is not 
only actual but great, there is no resource but the 
maintenance of a standing force of enlisted men, 
as well as of commissioned officers. A hundred 



200 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

years ago, when the engines were sails and guns 
simple tubes, the merchant seaman was already 
an engineer, and the gun handling was easily 
acquired ; indeed merchant ships also not infre- 
quently carried cannon. There was, therefore, a 
large recruiting ground of efficient men always at 
hand, though bitter experience showed how the 
commerce of the country could suffer from such 
heavy drafts upon its seamen. 

This resource no longer exists. A certain 
proportion of the engine-room force may possibly 
be drawn from the merchant service, but for the 
gun handling, upon which the fate of war de- 
pends, the deck hand of the merchant steamer is 
useless for intelligent action ; he can do no more, 
at the most critical moment of opening hostilities, 
then pull and haul. It is a safe generalization 
to say that not more than one-third of a ship's 
company in war can safely be composed of such 
material. Therefore, to calculate the standing 
force of a navy, in peace and for war, the rule 
would be to estimate the fixed force, on a war 
footing, for each ship on the list, built or build- 
ing. Two-thirds of the total obtained by adding 
these several results, would represent the size of 
the standing force, the established personnel, of 



Effect of Asiatic Conditions 201 

the fleet in peace. When war arises, the other 
third may be sought outside. 

Coincidently with the development of our 
power, we should, in order to effectiveness of 
action, consider also the retrenchment of respon- 
sibility. Briefly, this remark is intended to raise 
the question, in view of the tremendous advance 
in importance of the Pacific and Asia, whether 
the extension of the Monroe Doctrine to the 
extent of supporting the independence of the states 
of extreme South America against all European 
interference, is a position now either wise or 
tenable ? Great Britain suffers many strains by 
the dispersion of her Empire, but it is at least 
her Empire, — bone of her bone and flesh of her 
flesh. But what part have we, naturally or polit- 
ically, in the foreign communities — foreign in 
blood and in tradition — south of the valley of 
the Amazon. That they do not love us is 
notorious ; probably, indeed, they love us less 
because of our supposed purpose of interposition, 
which they doubtless would welcome in a strait, 
but which in ordinary times causes them chiefly 
mortification and apprehension. Within range 
of effect upon the Isthmus, certainly, our clear 
interest forbids toleration of any acquisition. 



202 Effect of Asiatic Conditions 

through possession or through influence, by a 
great foreign state — more so now than ever 
before ; but for the American communities be- 
yond that range, our professed poHtical concern is 
to us a waste of strength, as it is to them distaste- 
ful. The great valley of the Amazon, not unlike 
that of the Yang-tse, though far more practicable, 
indicates easily a great commercial zone in which 
the " open door " might profitably be assured by 
international understanding, and which also might 
very wisely be accepted in our national con- 
sciousness as interposing a broad effectual belt 
between the region where the Monroe Doctrine 
is applicable, and that where, for any useful pur- 
pose, it ceases to apply. 



THE MERITS OF THE TRANSVAAL 
DISPUTE 

IN contemporary disputes, passionate and par- 
tial assertion rarely fails to play as conspic- 
uous a part as truth ; with the result that there 
accumulates round the question at issue, and round 
the merits of the respective parties to it, a cloud 
of imperfect or erroneous statements, which not 
only confuse, but obscure. When such is the 
case, bystanders, who wish to understand, must 
be at the pains, first, to obtain a sufficient mastery 
of the various incidents and pleas which consti- 
tute the case on either side, and, second, to 
reject by elimination such of these attendant cir- 
cumstances as are irrelevant or superfluous. The 
residuum of decisive factors, thus obtained, will 
commonly be found not too complicated or too 
doubtful to admit of a correct appreciation. The 
yield of the process will usually be twofold, viz., 
the facts, and the principle, upon both of which 
just judgment depends. 



204 Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 

The dispute between Great Britain and the 
Transvaal, from which war has resulted, forms 
no exception to the general experience. On the 
contrary, passion and feeling, with their usual 
concomitant of hasty and vehement prejudgment, 
enter largely ; while the facts of the case are 
numerous, and sufficiently complicated to require a 
very real mental effort to catalogue, comprehend, 
and appreciate them in their relative importance. 
I assume, however, that they are in their entirety 
sufficiently familiar to all readers of the " North 
American," through the numerous articles of the 
last three issues. It is fair, therefore, to presup- 
pose some acquaintance with the detailed occur- 
rences, extending over the past fifty or sixty 
years, which have resulted in the war of to-day. 
As a first elimination, it may be affirmed with 
probable exactness that the events and dis- 
putes precedent to the Pretoria Convention, in 
1 88 1, may now be dismissed from consideration. 
They possess, indeed, historical interest, useful 
to an understanding of conditions, but are no 
longer pertinent to the discussion of right. That 
Convention, with its successor, the London Con- 
vention of 1884, being acts in which both parties 
consented, regularized and legalized their political 



Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 205 

relations. Whatever the latter may previously 
have been, is now immaterial ; the two conven- 
tions settled them then, and, conditional upon 
due observance on either side, remained the 
standard until the advent of war, which dissolves 
all conventions between belligerents, except such 
as pertain to the state of war itself. Our 
purpose here being to investigate the respective 
right and wrong, moral and political, in the con- 
duct of both parties, which resulted in the quarrel, 
the outbreak of hostilities, in October, 1899, 
marks the termination, as the Convention of 
Pretoria, in 1881, marks the beginning, of the 
period under examination. 

To make war is a moral action, to be judged 
by moral standards. The statement is applicable, 
not merely to the general question of waging 
war, but to all acts which lead up to war ; as ap- 
pHcable to defensive war as to offensive. It is 
as wicked to maintain wrong by force as it is 
good to enforce right by arms, when it cannot 
be otherwise insured. 

In political, as in personal, questions of moral 
conduct, I apprehend that judgment falls under 
three principal heads : Justice, Expediency or 
Policy, Duty. They answer to the questions : 



2o6 Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 

Is this within my right? Is it wise to enforce 
it? Is it my duty to do so ? As Saint Paul says, 
a thing may be lawful, but not expedient ; the 
lawfulness and the expediency alike are elements 
of moral decision. Again, a man may without 
wrong waive a purely personal right, but when 
the rights of others are involved by the same 
concession, the question of duty to those affected 
enters ; as, for instance, a father's action as affect- 
ing his children. The contemplated act may be 
lawful, it may be expedient at the moment, yet 
duty may forbid. By universal consent. Duty, 
when it clearly enters into a case, is paramount. 
It is the first in obligation, though not necessa- 
rily the first in order, of moral considerations. 

War exists in South Africa because Great 
Britain has determinedly followed a certain course 
of action, which falls under two principal divi- 
sions : insistence, first, that a large alien popula- 
tion in the Transvaal must be relieved from 
grievous political and social wrongs under which 
it is laboring ; and, second, that she has, in deal- 
ing with the Transvaal in this matter, a particular 
right and duty — as distinguished from those gen- 
eral rights which all nations possess as members 
of the international community. This particular 



Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 207 

right is called suzerainty, a term admittedly 
vague at the present day ; that is, the word 
itself does not, in default of particular definitions, 
express the extent of the rights of the possessor 
— of the suzerain. It is inherited from the feudal 
system, where the obligations of tenure under a 
suzerain were of different kinds and degrees. 

In the case of the Transvaal and Great Britain, 
the political relationship — independent of the 
word itself — is indicated by the character of the 
Conventions of Pretoria and of London. In 
both, the document is in the nature of a grant 
from a superior to a dependent.^ The former 
and earlier consists of a " Preamble " and " Arti- 
cles." The " preamble " expressly states, " On 
behalf of Her Majesty, that, . . . complete self- 
government, subject to the suzerainty of Her 
Majesty . , . will be accorded to the inhabitants 
of the Transvaal, upon the following terms and 

1 " When the Transvaal deputation visited the country in 1883, 
they asked, ' that the relation of a dependency, publici juris, in 
which our country now stands to the British Crown, may be 
replaced by that of two contracting Powers' (C. 3947, p. s), and 
they submitted a draft treaty to give effect to their views. This 
draft treaty Lord Derby entirely rejected, observing that it was, 
'neither in form nor in substance such as Her Majesty's Govern- 
ment could adopt.' " — Parliamentary Papers, C. 9507, p. 34. 



2o8 Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 

conditions ; " these terms, etc., being expressed in 
the " articles " — thirty-three in number. In the 
Convention of 1884, an introductory clause — 
not styled " preamble " in the document itself — 
reads : " Her Majesty has been pleased to take 
the said representations (of the Government of 
the Transvaal) into consideration, and has been 
pleased to direct, and it is hereby declared, that 
the following articles of a new Convention shall, 
when ratified by the Volksraad, be substituted for 
the articles embodied in the Convention of August 
3, 1881."^ In both cases there is a grant from 
one in authority over the other, the latter accept- 
ing ; and in both cases terms — articles — are 
affixed to that grant of " complete self-govern- 
ment," which is the substance of each. It has 
been contended by the Transvaal statesmen that 
the omission, in the second convention, of 
the words, " subject to the suzerainty of Her 
Majesty," which were in the preamble of the 
first, abolished the suzerainty in fact. The suffi- 
cient reply to that is that the same construc- 
tion abolishes the " complete self-government " 
granted ; for the one phrase and the other occur 
only in the first Convention, in the preamble. To 

1 My italics. 



Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 209 

the latter the second makes no allusion, but it is 
explicit as to the substitution of one set of articles 
for the other. 

Sir Alfred Milner justly observed/ " Whether 
the relationship created by the Conventions is 
properly described as suzerainty is not, in my 
opinion, of much importance. It is a question 
of etymological rather than of political interest." 
Still, the tenacity with which the rulers of the 
Transvaal clung to the renunciation of the word 
has given it substantial significance ; for, in the 
end, three months after Milner wrote the above 
sentences, they offered to concede nearly, if not 
quite, all that he had suggested for the benefit of 
the Uitlanders, upon two or three conditions, 
chief among which was that " a precedent shall 
not be formed by the present intervention 
for similar action in future," and " that Her 
Majesty's Government will not insist further upon 
the assertion of suzerainty, the controversy on this 
subject being tacitly allowed to drop." ^ This the 
British Government refused,^ and the Transvaal 
withdrew its offer. It was too evident that the 

1 Parliamentary Papers, C. 9507, p. 6. 

2 Parliamentary Papers, C. 9521, p. 44. 

3 Ibid. pp. 45, 50 ; C. 9507, p. 33. 

14 



2IO Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 

relinquishment of the word would be understood 
to mean a concession of non-dependence, and of 
non-responsibility to Great Britain, in all matters 
not expressly reserved. For the substance of 
suzerainty is the existence of dependence in the 
vassal, except so far as independence is conceded. 
" Complete self-government " is not indepen- 
dence. The explicit reservation by Great Britain 
of the right to nullify any treaty, or engagement, 
entered into by the Transvaal with a foreign 
country,^ necessarily reserved with it responsibil- 
ity for its relations with the outside world ; for 
when treaties or engagements cannot be indepen- 
dently concluded, although dealings may be had 
and business carried on, it is impossible to guar- 
antee satisfactory relations of any kind. The 
whole includes the parts ; final ratification con- 
ditions and embraces all the antecedents. 

The troubles which led up to this war suffi- 
ciently illustrate this. Among the Uitlanders in 
whose behalf Great Britain interposed were the 
subjects of many foreign States. In particular 
difficulties connected with these, the Transvaal 
agents might, by concession or otherwise, reach 
a satisfactory arrangement with the Powers con- 

1 Art. 4, Convention of 1884, Parliamentary Papers, C. 3914. 



Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 2 1 1 

cerned, which might obviate the necessity of an 
engagement ; but if it became necessary to enter 
into engagements, the reserved right of Great 
Britain entailed not only power, but responsibil- 
ity, for the two are inseparable. Upon respon- 
sibility follows obligation — to procure a remedy 
for conditions provocative of just reclamation by 
foreign States ; and this obligation outweighs, in 
moral force, that political expediency — or interest 
— which, by common consent, justifies interfer- 
ence in the affairs of a neighboring State, when 
these threaten your own peace or welfare, as, for 
instance, when we lately interfered with Spain in 
Cuba, a course in which our obligation was not 
legal, but moral. Our own keen national sense 
on this subject is evidenced by our Monroe Doc- 
trine. In the Americas we object to foreign 
interference carried beyond certain limits, because 
the matter comes too near home for our peace 
and interest. Well, Great Britain, which rules 
by far the greater part of South Africa, and is 
predominant there as we are here, objects to 
foreign interference in the Transvaal, her states- 
men having even used the Monroe Doctrine as 
illustrative of her policy in that respect. Conse- 
quently, when she established the Transvaal as a 



212 Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 

self-governing but dependent State, she, in addi- 
tion to the right resting upon general interest in 
a neighbor, reserved a check upon its relations 
with foreign States. 

The right to interpose as she has done — the 
first, in order, of the moral considerations — 
rests upon two grounds : First, of general policy, 
in the necessity of remedying conditions in a 
neighboring State, which threaten one's own tran- 
quillity or welfare — as when we intervened in 
Cuba and in the Venezuela business ; and, second, 
upon the specific right of suzerainty, retained in 
the Acts which constituted the Transvaal into 
the South African Republic. For those not 
satisfied, as I am, with the technical verbal argu- 
ment in proof of this retention (given above), the 
purpose and understanding of the British Gov- 
ernment in the transaction were affirmed in Par- 
liament by its negotiator. Lord Derby, on March 
17, 1884, the Convention, having been signed 
February 27, less than three weeks before. " It 
has been said that the object of the Convention 
had been to abolish the suzerainty of the British 
Crown. The word ' suzerainty ' is a very vague 
word, and I do not think it is capable of any 
precise legal definition. Whatever we may under- 



Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 213 

stand by it, I think it is not very easy to define. 
But I apprehend, whether you call it a protector- 
ate, of a suzerainty, or the recognition of Eng- 
land as a paramount Power, the fact is that a 
certain controlling power is retained when the 
State which exercises this suzerainty has a right to 
veto any negotiations into which the dependent^ 
State may enter with foreign Powers. Whatever 
suzerainty meant in the Convention of Pretoria, 
the condition of things which it implies still 
remains ; although the word is not actually em- 
ployed, we have kept the substance. We have 
abstained from using the word, because it was not 
capable of legal definition, and because it seemed 
to be a word which was likely to lead to miscon- 
ception and misunderstanding." ^ It is clear that 
Derby, overlooking the retention of the preamble 
of 1 88 1, understood himself to have abandoned, 
not the thing, but the word, because the latter 
was indeterminate ; owing to the historical appli- 
cations which constitute its definition being so 
varied. 

Passing with these remarks from the question 
of Great Britain's rights, I take up next that of 
her duty, under the conditions existing prior to 

1 My italic. ^ Pari. Papers, C. 9507, p, 34. 



214 Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 

the war ; leaving to the end a brief summary of 
the reasons which, in my opinion, constitute 
the expediency, or poHcy, of her action in the 
premises. 

It is a commonplace, that responsibility is the 
complement of power. It is also the foundation 
of duty. A person responsible has a duty to do, 
when occasion arises. In refusing the Transvaal 
that independence in foreign relations which 
would enable other States to hold it directly 
accountable. Great Britain retained, in so far, 
responsibility that foreigners should be so treated 
as to give no just ground for reclamations. In 
the case of wrongdoing by a dependent, one's 
duty, or responsibility, is not limited to cor- 
rection upon complaint of grievance. Even for 
single, unforeseen, acts of wrong, reparation may 
be exacted ; but for a continuous act, or con- 
dition, clearly known, the duty of remedial 
measures is such that the failure to institute them 
is just cause for complaint. A foreign State, in 
its care for its citizens abroad, does not, for 
redress, look below the supreme power of the 
State where they are domiciled. From the latter 
it demands justice, nor does it concern itself with 
the methods by which justice is reached ; those 



Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 215 

are part of the internal affairs of the other coun- 
try. The home government of the injured man 
sees only the injury and the responsible power ; 
that is, the supreme Government. When Italian 
citizens were lynched in New Orleans some years 
ago, the Italian Government had before it two 
facts: violence done to its citizens, and the 
government of the country where the violence 
occurred. The laws and courts of the United 
States, State sovereignty, the laws of Louisiana, 
were nothing to it — part of the internal ma- 
chinery of our Government. The injured per- 
sons and the responsible Power were the only 
things with which Italy then had concern. 

The political relation of the Transvaal to Great 
Britain is certainly not the same as that of one 
of our States to the central Government ; but 
Great Britain, by retaining the ultimate control 
of foreign relations, and by her well-defined pur- 
pose not to permit interference in the Transvaal 
by a foreign Power, was responsible for conditions 
of wrong to foreign citizens within its borders. 
She had surrendered the right to interfere, as 
suzerain, with internal affairs ; but she had not 
relieved herself, as by a grant of full independence 
and sovereignty she might have done, from re- 



2i6 Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 

sponsibility for injury due to internal mal-admin- 
istration ; any more than the United States was 
relieved of the responsibility to Italy by the State 
sovereignty of Louisiana. The responsibility 
thus remaining gave the right to require, not that 
this or that change should be made in the internal 
administration of the Transvaal, but that the con- 
dition of the foreign population should in some 
way be made socially and economically tolerable. 
The method was not her affair, but the result 
was. Internal affairs and external relations are 
logically separable ; but mutual interaction takes 
place between them. 

Citizens of other States, however, formed a 
minority of the Uitlander population ; a majority 
were British subjects. To these the duty of 
Great Britain was that of a State to its citizens 
residing in foreign countries, everywhere through- 
out the world. If they received wrong, she had 
the duty of reclamation; if the wrong were con- 
tinuous, she owed sustained diplomatic pressure 
for a change of action ; if this were refused, she 
had, by international law, the right of war. 
When the exercise of this last right becomes a 
duty, is a question for the sole decision of the 
injured State. In this particular the Transvaal 



Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 217 

stood to her, by her own act, in the relation of an 
independent State. Control of internal affairs 
had been conceded to it, and to demand, as 
suzerain, a change of the laws, would have been 
to break the compact. " The British Govern- 
ment," says Mr. Bryce, "always admitted that 
they had no right to demand the franchise ; "^ an 
assertion which demonstrates the correctness of 
their attitude, and which is most fully substanti- 
ated by the papers submitted to Parliament. 
But it was no breach of compact to demand that 
existing wrongs should be righted, leaving to the 
Transvaal authorities the determination of the 
methods — the internal arrangements — by which 
the result was reached. Such pressure rests on 
international law, would be as applicable to a 
difficulty with the United States as to one with 
the Transvaal, and, if wrongs sufficiently great 
existed, it was the duty of Great Britain to exert 
such pressure. This was her second duty. There 
was a third that will be mentioned later. 

Did such wrongs exist ? In my judgment 
there certainly did, and of a character and extent 
that, if not remedied, would justify war. Of 
course, when one comes to estimate injury, great 

1 "Impressions of South Africa," Second Edition, p. xxxiv. 



2i8 Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 

differences of opinion will be manifested. It is 
not every small wrong that makes it expedient to 
go to law ; nor does even serious damage consti- 
tute an unendurable wrong. But, if it be hard 
to measure wrongs in degree, it is less difficult to 
v^alue them in kind ; to recognize an underlying 
principle, and to see that when this is violated by 
rulers, there is planted a root of bitterness which 
sooner or later must bear its evil fruit, and which 
therefore cannot be too soon extirpated. I prefer 
here, first, to state the character of the Transvaal 
Government in its relation to the Uitlanders in 
the words of Mr. Bryce, for not only are his 
moderation and candor universally recognized, 
but he has not approved the course of his own 
country in so far as war has by it been made in- 
evitable. " The position of the Transvaal Gov- 
ernment, although it had some measure of legal 
strength, was, if regarded from the point of view 
of actual facts, logically indefensible and materially 
dangerous. . . . They — or rather the President 
and his advisers — committed the fatal mistake 
of trying to maintain a government which was at 
the same time undemocratic and incompetent. 
. . . An exclusive government may be pardoned 
if it is efficient ; an inefficient government, if it 



Merits of the Transvaal Dispttte' 219 

rests upon the people. But a government which 
is both inefficient and exclusive incurs a weight 
of odium under which it must ultimately sink ; 
and this was the kind of government which the 
Transvaal attempted to maintain. They ought, 
therefore, to have either extended their franchise 
or reformed their administration." ^ 

Reform of the franchise was what the British 
Government suggested, but could not demand ; 
for it had no control of the internal affairs. But, 
underlying all this undemocratic and inefficient 
government, was unwillingness to acknowledge 
the fundamental principle, by the maintenance of 
which liberty has made each painful step upward, 
viz., that taxation rests in the hands of the taxed 
community, acting through its representatives, 
while enlargement of the basis of representation 
is one of the particular notes of modern political 
advance. The Uitlanders produced more than 
nine-tenths of the revenue, but the terms upon 
which they were admitted to the franchise were 
so exorbitant as to be prohibitory. Especially 
grievous was the condition that between naturali- 
zation and franchise a long period intervened, 
during which the man had lost his old citizenship 

1 "Impressions of South Africa," Second Edition, p. xviii. 



220 Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 

without acquiring the privileges of the new. 
While in that position he was no man's man, 
having lost his hold on one country, while in the 
other he had obtained no right, but only duties ; 
such as compulsory military service, and the pay- 
ment of taxes, in the levying of which he not 
only had no vote at the polls, but no organ of 
speech, no adequate representative, in the deliber- 
ations of the Legislature.^ The political sin of 
the Transvaal against the Uitlander, therefore, was 
no mere matter of detail — of less or more — but 
was fundamental in its denial of elementary 
political right. 

Consider the conditions of the franchise in 
June last, at the time of the Bloemfontein Con- 
ference, between Sir Alfred Milner and President 
Kriiger. In 1882, one year after the Convention 
of Pretoria, the period for attaining the full 
franchise, which in the earlier days of the com- 
munity had been one or two years, was fixed at 
five years. In 1885 came the gold discoveries, 
with the inflow of the mining population, and in 

1 The gold fields, in which district live most of the Uitlanders, 
who alone are far more numerous than all the burghers in the 
Transvaal, had but two representatives in a House of 28. — C. 
9404, p. 54. 



Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 221 

1890 the time was extended to fourteen years. 
Nor was this all, although extremely oppressive, 
judged by all modern standards, when it is con- 
sidered that the men to whom it applied were 
those who were developing the resources of the 
State and producing nine-tenths of its revenue. 
The law was made applicable to those already in 
the country ; so that men who had entered in 1886 
and the intervening years, however valuable as 
members of the community, were unable to 
acquire full citizenship in five years, according to 
the conditions of their immigration, but were 
compelled to wait fourteen. To this were at- 
tached other vexatious regulations, which made 
it an onerous task for a man to establish his 
claims, and left it in the power of the authorities 
to retard and thwart him in his effort to gain 
citizenship. Above all, by a singular provision 
then introduced, an interval of twelve years was 
interposed between naturalization and full fran- 
chise ; the latter consisting in power to vote for 
members of the First Volksraad, in which the 
valid legislative power of the Republic is concen- 
trated. During this period, a man, having 
become by naturalization a citizen of the Trans- 
vaal, lost the protection his native country would 



22 2 Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 

give him, in case of injustice, but acquired no real 
share in the government of his new State. 

That any men of EngHsh or American origin 
would rest quietly under such political treatment 
is most improbable ; but it is impossible unless 
administration be such as to give them all the 
benefits of pure and efficient government. This, 
however, was not the case, as Mr. Bryce has said. 
Into the details of mis-government there is not 
here space to go ; they must be sought in the 
many books on the subject. A Boer partisan 
cynically observes, " In the Transvaal the poor 
have the power, and compel the rich to pay the 
taxes ; " ^ the truth being, however, that an armed 
minority holds the power, compels the majority 
to pay the taxes, denies it representation, and 
misgoverns it with the money extorted. 

Such internal administration must entail exter- 
nal complications. In the neighboring British 
colonies there is a large Dutch population, which 
everywhere possesses equal political rights with 
its British fellow-subjects. The wrath of the 
latter was stirred by the inequality and indignity 
suffered by their countrymen in the Transvaal ; 
and the political agitation instituted by the Uit- 

1 Hillegas : "Oom Paul's People," p. 232. 



Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 223 

landers was warmly seconded by the men of 
English blood in the surrounding districts. Both 
carried their appeals to the home Government, 
and the latter was made to feel that the loyalty 
and contentment of the colonist, upon which 
depends the integrity of the Empire, require that 
the latter not only be just itself, but shall exact 
justice for its citizens when clearly refused to 
them by others. That this view of the South 
African colonists was shared by the other parts 
of the Empire is shown by the enthusiasm with 
which, not Great Britain alone, but Canada and 
Australia espoused the cause of the Uitlander. 
The wrongs of the latter, by intensifying a com- 
mon sentiment, have done more to rivet Im- 
perial Federation than aught that planning and 
organization could contrive. 

The British Government has for nearly a 
decade been confronted with the conditions which 
resulted last year in the Bloemfontein Confer- 
ence. At this the British representative ex- 
pressly disclaimed any intention of " giving 
orders or commands." ^ There had been long 
disagreements between the two States, which were 
increasing instead of diminishing. In his opinion, 

1 Parliamentary Papers, C. 9404, p. 16. 



2 24 Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 

" the cause of the most serious differences arises 
out of the poHcy pursued by the Government of 
the South African Republic toward the Uitlander 
population," ^ If that " Government, of its own 
accord, would afford a more liberal treatment to 
the Uitlanders, this would not increase British 
interference, but enormously diminish it. If 
they were in a position to help themselves they 
would not always be appealing to us under the 
Convention." As a definite proposition he sug- 
gested that the full franchise should be given to 
every foreigner who had resided for five years in 
the Republic — thus reverting to the law of 1882. 
To this could be attached a property qualification 
which would prevent so many new voters as 
would outnumber the old burghers. Also, as 
the Uitlanders mostly live in one district of the 
Republic, and in order that their representatives 
should not be " in a contemptible minority," he 
proposed that there should be a certain number 
of new constituencies in the First Volksraad.^ 
, The Conference separated without reaching an 
agreement. On June 15, the Raad adjourned, to 
allow members to consult their constituencies. 
On July 3 it reassembled, and in the course of 

1 Parliamentary Papers, C. 9404, pp. 14, 15. ^ Ibid. p. 3. 



Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 225 

the month passed an act granting naturalization 
and full franchise to residents of seven years, hav- 
ing certain property qualifications. Not only was 
the period thought too long, but to the process 
of obtaining these rights were attached conditions 
so complicated as to be unsatisfactory to the Uit- 
landers and to the British Government ; for it 
was believed that they could, and would, be used 
to defeat the applicant. A request of the British 
Government for " an opportunity of making its 
views known on this new franchise law " was 
refused, on the ground that " the First Volksraad 
had now * passed the law and finally fixed it.' " ^ 
Diplomacy cannot go on when one side invokes 
the law of its land to close discussion. The 
South African Republic overlooked the fact that, 
where parties disagree, agreement must mean 
acceptance by both, whether with or without war. 
Being thus dissatisfied, the British Govern- 
ment, on August I, invited the Transvaal to 
appoint delegates, to discuss with British dele- 
gates, whether " the Uitlanders will be given 
immediate and substantial representation by the 
Franchise Law recently passed, together with 
other measures connected with it — such as in- 

1 Parliamentary Papers, C. 9518, pp. 51, 58. 
IS 



226 Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 

crease of seats — and, if not, what additions or 
alterations may be necessary to secure that 
result." ^ To this Commission of Inquiry the 
Transvaal Government was averse, assigning as 
its reason that joint inquiry would prejudice the 
right of full independence in internal affairs ; and 
on August 15, intimated that it was "willing to 
make the following proposals, provided that Her 
Majesty's Government are willing not to press 
their demand for the proposed joint inquiry into 
the political representation of the Uitlanders."^ 
These proposals were : A five years' retrospec- 
tive franchise, which was Milner's suggestion at 
Bloemfontein ; ten seats in a First Volksraad of 
thirty-six members ; and certain other minor 
concessions.^ With these propositions, however, 
were coupled three conditions, one of which was 
a provision for arbitration, to which the British 
Government acceded tentatively. The other 
two, already quoted, were : "That Her Majesty's 
Government will agree that the present interven- 
tion shall not form a precedent for future similar 
action, and that in the future no interference in 
the internal affairs of the Republic will take 

1 Parliamentary Papers, C. 9518, p. 30. 

2 Ibid. C. 9521, p. 44. ® Ibid. p. 46. 



Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 227 

place; and that Her Majesty's Government will 
not further insist on the assertion of suzerainty." ^ 
The latter was refused ; to the former the reply 
was that, " Her Majesty's Government cannot, 
of course, debar themselves from their rights 
under the Conventions, nor divest themselves of 
the ordinary obligations of a civilized Power to 
protect its subjects in a foreign country from in- 
justice." ^ The British Government had not 
interfered in the internal affairs of the Transvaal, 
as implied by the latter. Seeing the oppression 
of its citizens there, and the resulting friction 
between the two governments, it had demanded 
relief, suggesting that a liberal franchise would 
most surely afford this, and it had refused to 
accept, as adequate, measures that in its judg- 
ment were inadequate ; but further than sugges- 
tion no claim to intervention, as suzerain, was 
advanced. Of course, the compulsion of force — 
of possible war — hung in the background, as it 
does in all diplomatic disputes of a critical nature 
between States, even mutually independent. 

Dissatisfied with this reply, the Transvaal 
withdrew its offer. The subsequent negotia- 
tions are important as elucidatory, but may be 

* Parliamentary Papers, C. 9521, pp. 46,47. ^ Ibid. p. 50. 



2 28 Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 

neglected, as not otherwise essential to the merits 
of the case. On October 9, the Transvaal issued 
its ultimatum. In my opinion, the question who 
declared war is immaterial, except for the moral 
effect upon the sentiment that condemns all wars, 
judges mainly by feeling and preconception, and 
looks little into causes. Briefly stated, the argu- 
ment in my mind runs thus: There were in the 
Transvaal some sixty thousand Uitlanders and 
thirty thousand Boers ^ of an age fit for suffrage. 
Of the former the great majority were British 
subjects. They were oppressively misgoverned, 
and were denied both franchise and representa- 
tion. In a Volksraad of twenty-eight there were 
from their district only two, in the choice of 
whom they had no adequate voice. They raised 
the revenue, from less than a million, to twenty 
million dollars. Their appeals for good adminis- 
tration and for fair treatment were disregarded. 
They had entered the country by encouragement 
of the Government,^ many of them at a time 
when five years' residence conferred the franchise ; 

1 President Kriiger's estimate. — Parliamentary Papers, C. 
9404, p. 19. 

2 Letter of Ewald Esselen, Secretary to Transvaal Deputation in 
London, December 21, 1883. Contemporary Re'vie^w, February, 
18985 Article, "Real Grievances of the Uitlanders." 



Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 229 

but before they could obtain it the period was 
increased to fourteen years. The laws were un- 
stable and easily altered ; confused, purposely or 
not, so that the difficulties of qualifying were 
enormously increased. Unable to become citi- 
zens, unprotected, and unable politically to pro- 
tect themselves, they appealed, as every domiciled 
foreigner does, to their home government. In- 
numerable complaints cumbered the files and 
embarrassed the relations of the two States. 
Agitation spread throughout South Africa, defin- 
ing itself on lines of race feeling, never wholly 
extinguished, and threatening the deplorable an- 
tagonisms that thence arise. The elements of a 
conflagration were all there, and the atmosphere 
rising to the kindling point. To compose the 
trouble. Great Britain suggested a plan eminently 
reasonable, unfair only to the Uitlanders, to whom 
it gave far less than all white men throughout 
South Africa receive at British hands, and she re- 
fused to accept as satisfactory anything less than 
the minimum of remedy ; for let it be continually 
remembered that the franchise was sought, not 
mainly as an act of justice, but as the most 
promising means of escape from a position 
become unendurable. 



230 Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 

" The franchise," says Mr. Bryce, " did not 
constitute a legitimate cause of war." ^ In this 
it appears to me there is a confusion of idea, or a 
begging of the question. The question is begged, 
if it is impHed that the cause of the war was a 
demand, based on suzerainty, for an extended 
franchise. That would not be a legitimate cause. 
But, in so far as a cause good in morals is legiti- 
mate, the denial of an adequate franchise was a 
legitimate cause of war, because, in the absence 
of an adequate alternative, it kept in a condition 
of intolerable oppression a number of British 
citizens who had been invited to commit their 
persons and their fortunes to the protection of 
the Transvaal Government, in order to develop 
the resources of the country. Great Britain had 
the highest moral duty to see that those people 
received — not the franchise necessarily — but 
fair treatment and decent government. There is 
not an American pro-Boer partisan that would 
have endured for six months the conditions of 
the Uitlanders, without appeal to his govern- 
ment, if it were in a position to aid. 

That race differences were at the bottom of the 
war is an interesting philosophical explanation, 

1 " Impressions of South Africa," Second Edition, p. xxxiv. 



Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 231 

and has its value. It is true, indeed, in great 
part, as a fact ; for I trust no American or Eng- 
lish community in the present day could, with- 
out its own blood boiling in its veins, give to any 
indwellers such treatment as the Boers have given 
the Uitlanders. But whatever part race differ- 
ences have played, it has been as an ultimate 
cause, not as a proximate. The occasion of the 
war has been as described. 

To the occasion, also, every consideration of 
duty and of expediency combined to compel 
Great Britain ; to constitute a third duty already 
alluded to — the duty to the Empire. The 
peace of South Africa was not merely imperilled ; 
it was destroyed, unless the conditions were 
healthfully and radically changed. Whether 
there was any widespread, organized conspiracy 
to supplant British rule by Dutch, is a matter 
only of inference ; but it appears to me beyond 
doubt that a considerable number of Boers 
throughout South Africa cherished that purpose, 
consciously, and had succeeded in setting in 
motion feelings and conditions — of which the 
Transvaal was the centre — that would, unless 
abruptly checked, result in the subversion of 
British rule. We in America, who know the 



232 Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 

history of Secession, know to what lengths small 
beginnings, ably guided, can go. The political 
complexion, tenure, and stability of South Africa, 
however, are not a concern of the British Isles 
only, but of the British Empire. My profes- 
sional opinion does not attach supreme, exclusive, 
naval importance to the Cape route as compared 
with that of Suez ; but the mass of sound British 
opinion does, and its commercial value is beyond 
dispute. To India and to Australia it is of the 
first consequence ; to Great Britain and to Atlan- 
tic Canada hardly less. The Cape is one of the 
vital centres in the network of communications 
of the whole Empire. To let it go, wrenched 
away through culpable remissness, would be to 
dissolve the Empire ; and justly. A government 
is not worthy to live, that, having shown to all 
its subjects the impartiality and liberality which 
Great Britain has to British and Dutch alike 
throughout South Africa, should supinely ac- 
quiesce in the conditions of the Transvaal, as 
depicted, or fail to take heed that the Dutch 
Afrikander, as a class, has so little learned the 
lessons of political justice and true liberty, that 
his sympathies are with the Boer oppressor rather 
than with the Uitlander oppressed. Under such 



Merits of the Transvaal Dispute 233 

conditions it wou]d have been imperial suicide to 
have allowed the well-known, though under- 
valued, military preparations of the Transvaal to 
pass unnoticed, defiant oppression to continue, 
and race disaffection to come to a head, until the 
favorable moment for revolt should be found in 
a day of imperial embarrassment. To every sub- 
ject of the Empire the Government owed it to 
settle at once the question, and to establish its 
own paramountcy on bases that cannot be shaken 
lightly. 

Note. — The Parliamentary Papers referred to in the foot- 
notes contain the official correspondence of both parties to the 
negotiations. 



Uniform with " The Problem of Asia,^'' and ^^ Lessons of the 
War with Spain, and Other Articles.'''' 

THE INTEREST OF AMERICA IN 
SEA POWER, Present and Future. 

By Capt. a. T. Mahan. With two maps showing strate- 
gic points. Crown 8vo. Cloth, gilt top. ^2.00. 

CONTENTS 

I. The United States Looking Out- VI. Preparedness for Naval War. 

ward. VII. A Twentieth Century Out- 

II. Hawaii and our Sea Power. look. 

III. The Isthmus and our Sea Power. VIII. Strategic Features of the Gulf 

IV. Anglo-American Alliance. of Mexico and the Caribbean 
V. The Future in Relation to Amer- Sea. 

ican Naval Power. 

All the civilized world knows Captain Mahan is an expert on 
naval matters. His present position on the Board of Strategy, 
directing the American fleets, has made him even more conspicuous 
than usual. These papers, in the light of the present war, prove 
Captain Mahan a most sane and sure prophet. It seems hard to 
imagine any topics more fascinating at the present time. No ro- 
mance, no novel, could possibly equal such essays as these, by such 
an author, in present public interest. So many of his theories 
have come to reality as to be positively remarkable. — The Criterion. 

The last paper, " Strategic Features of the Caribbean Sea and 
the Gulf of Mexico," written only last year, deals with problems 
that now confront the people of the United States in the shape of 
practical questions that will have to be decided for the present and 
the future. It is well within the bounds of truth to say that an 
intelligent comprehension of these questions is not possible without 
a reading of the present volume. — Philadelphia Inquirer. 

His paper on Hawaii is timely at this moment, as it treats of the 
annexation of the Sandwich Islands from the point of view which our 
statesmen might well take, rather than from the professional view 
which a naval officer might be expected to hold. — Philadelphia 
Telegraph. 

The substance of all these essays concerns every intelligent voter 
in this country. — Boston Herald. 



LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, Publishers 
254 Washington Street, Boston. 



THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER 
UPON HISTORY, 1660-1783. By Capt. 

A. T. Mahan. With 25 charts illustrative of great naval 
battles. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top. ^4.00. 

Captain Mahan has been recognized by all competent judges, not 
merely as the most distinguished living vsrriter on naval strategy, but 
as the originator and first exponent of what may be called the 
philosophy of naval history. — London Times. 

No book of recent publication has been received with such en- 
thusiasm of grateful admiration as that written by an officer of the 
American Navy, Captain Mahan, upon Sea Power and Naval 
Achievements. It simply supplants all other books on the subject, 
and takes its place in our libraries as the standard work. — Dean 
Hole, in ' ' More Memories. "" ' 

An altogether exceptional work ; there is nothing like it in the 
whole range of naval literature. . . . The work is entirely original 
in conception, masterful in construction, and scholarly in execution. 
— The Critic. 

Captain Mahan, whose name is famous all the world over as that 
of the author of "The Influence of Sea Power upon History," a 
work, or rather a series of works, which may fairly be said to have 
codified the laws of naval strategy. — The Westminster Gazette. 

An instructive work of the highest value and interest to students 
and to the reading public, and should find its way into all the libra- 
ries and homes of the land. — Magazine of American History. 

A book that must be read. First, it must be read by all school- 
masters, from the head-master of Eton to the head of the humblest 
board-school in the country. No man is fit to train English boys 
to fulfil their duties as Englishmen who has not marked, learned, 
and inwardly digested it. Secondly, it must be read by every 
Englishman and Englishwoman who wishes to be worthy of that 
name. It is no hard or irksome task to which I call them. The 
writing is throughout clear, vigorous, and incisive. . . . The book 
deserves and must attain a world-wide reputation. — Colonel 
Maurice, of the British Army, in the " United Service Magazine." 



LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, Publishers 

254 Washington Street, Boston 



THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER 

upon the French Revolution and Km- 

P^re. By Capt. a. T. Mahan. With 13 maps and 
battle plans. 2 vols. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top. ^6.00. 

A highly interesting and an important work, having lessons and 
suggestions v?hich are calculated to be of high value to the people 
of the United States. His pages abound with spirited and careful 
accounts of the great naval battles and manoeuvres which occurred 
during the period treated. — Ne^w Tork Tribune. 

Captain Mahan has done more than to write a new book upon 
naval history. He has even done more than to write the best book 
that has ever been written upon naval history, though he has done 
this likewise ; for he has written a book which may be regarded 
as founding a new school of naval historical writing. Captain 
Mahan' s volumes are already accepted as the standard authorities of 
their kind, not only here, but in England and in Europe generally. 
It should be a matter of pride to all Americans that an officer of 
our own. navy should have written such books. — Theodore 
Roosevelt, in " Political Science ^arterly.''^ 



THE LIFE OF NELSON: The Em- 
bodiment of the Sea Power of Gre at 

Britain. By Capt. a. T. Mahan. With 19 por- 
traits and plates in photogravure and 21 maps and battle 
plans. 2 vols. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top. ^8.00. 

Captain Mahan' s work will become one of the greatest naval 
classics. — London Times. 

The greatest literary achievement of the author of "The In- 
fluence of Sea Power upon History." Never before have charm of 
style, perfect professional knowledge, the insight and balanced 
judgment of a great historian, and deep admiration for the hero 
been blended in any biography of Nelson. — • London Standard. 



LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, Publishers 
254 Washington Street, Boston 



CAPTAIN MAHAN'S LIFE OF NELSON 

NEW POPULAR EDITION 
COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME 

THE LIFE OF NELSON. The Em- 
bodiment of the Sea Power of Great 

Britain. By Capt. a. T. Mahan. With 1 2 portraits 
and plates in half-tone and a photogravure frontispiece. 
Crown 8vo. Cloth. 750 pages. ^3.00. 

It is not astonishing that this standard life is already passing into 
a new edition. It has simply displaced all its predecessors except 
one, that of Southey, which is the vade-mecum of British patriotism, 
a stimulant of British loyalty, literature of high quality, but in no 
sense a serious historical or psychological study. . . . The reader 
will 'find in this book three things : an unbroken series of verified 
historical facts related in minute detail 5 a complete picture of the 
hero, with every virtue justly estimated but with no palliation of 
weakness or fault 5 and lastly a triumphant vindication of a thesis 
novel and startling to most, that the earth's barriers are continental, 
its easy and defensible highways those of the trackless ocean. . . . 
Captain Mahan has revealed the modern world to itself. — American 
Historical Re'vie-TV, July, 1899. 

Captain Mahan' s masterly life of Nelson has already taken its place 
as the final book on the subject. — Mail and Express, New York._ 

One never tires of reading or reflecting upon the marvellous 
career of Horatio Nelson, the greatest sea captain the world has 
known. Captain Mahan has written the best biography of Lord 
Nelson that has yet been given to the world. — Chicago E^jening 
Post. 

His biography is not merely the best life of Nelson that has ever 
been written, but it is also perfect, and a model among all the 
biographies of the world. — Pall Mall Gazette. 



LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, Publishers 

254 W^ashington Street, Boston 



Uniform with " The Problem of Asia,'''' and " The Interest 
of America in Sea Power.'''' 

LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH 
SPAIN, and Other Articles. By ALFRED 

T. MAHAN, D.C.L., LL.D., Captain United States 
Navy, author of " The Interest of America in Sea Power,' ' 
*' The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783," 
" The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution 
and Empire," *'The Life of Nelson, the Embodiment of 
the Sea Power of Great Britain," and of a "Life of 
Farragut." Crown 8vo. Cloth. ^2.00. 

This recent work by Captain Mahan, the leading writer on 
naval warfare, is of great interest and value. Captain Mahan' s 
position as a member of the American Board of Strategy 
gave him exceptional opportunity for analyzing the events of the 
War with Spain and perceiving its meaning. Starting out with the 
original design of eliciting some of the lessons of this war, he has 
added to the work the further purpose of presenting, simply and 
clearly, the fundamental conceptions of warfare in general and 
naval warfare in particular. The volume supplements in a way 
Captain Mahan' s previous book, " The Interest of America in Sea 
Power," which, though it appeared before the war, was considered 
remarkable for the foresight with which it presented important 
questions that later confronted the American people. 

Captain Mahan stands at the head of his profession in knowl- 
edge of naval strategy and naval affairs generally. He was a 
member of the Advisory Board in the Navy Department during the 
war with Spain, and had full knowledge of everything that took 
place ... so far as the navy was concerned. — Philadelphia Press. 

CONTENTS 

Lessons of the War with Spain, 1898. 

Introductory : Comprehension of Military and Naval Matters 
possible to the People, and important to the Nation. 

I. How the motive of the War gave Direction to its Earlier Movements. 
— Strategic Value of Puerto Rico. — Consideration on the Size and 
Qualities of Battleships. — Mutual Relations of Coast Defence and 
Navy. 



LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH SPAIN, Continued 



CONTENTS, continued 

II. The Effect of Deficient Coast-Defence upon the Movements of the 
Navy. — The Military and Naval Conditions of Spain at the Out- 
break of the War. 

III. Possibilities open to the Spanish Navy at the Beginning of the War. — 

The Reasons for Blockading Cuba. — First Movements of the Squad- 
rons under Admirals Sampson and Cervera. 

IV. Problems presented by Cervera's Appearance in West Indian 'Waters. 

— Movements of the United States Divisions and of the " Oregon." 

— Functions of Cruisers in a Naval Campaign. 

V. The Guard set over Cervera. — Influence of Inadequate Numbers upon 
the Conduct of Naval and Military Operations. — Camara's Rush 
through the Mediterranean, and Consequent Measures taken by the 
United States. 

The Peace Conference and the Moral Aspect of War. 

The Relations of the United States to their New Dependencies. 

Distinguishing Qualities of Ships of W^ar. 

Current fallacies upon Naval Subjects. 

A most admirable review of the war with Spain. . . . The 
lessons deduced are both impressive and rational. — Detroit Journal. 

The essays upon the war with Spain are a very instructive and 
interesting analysis of the naval operations in the West Indies, and, 
considered as a discussion of the war as actually conducted, could 
not easily be improved. The author's professional knowledge and 
his study of the broader problems of naval strategy give lucid expo- 
sitions of the recurring critical situations in the Caribbean Sea, while 
his position as a member of the strategy board at Washington makes 
his explanation of the reasons which controlled the conflict author- 
itative. — The Nation, N. Y. 

They deal authoritatively with very great and vital questions. . . 
There are no more significant passages of his book than those in 
which he urges his countrymen, in tlie calm which has followed the 
storm of war, to look well to their gates and to prepare an 
adequate armored fleet against the inevitable next emergency. — 
Boston Journal. 

A suggestive and illuminating book. — Buffalo Express. 

Should be read by every American who wishes to see what a 
profound thinker and naval expert thinks of the events of the last 
two years. — Minneapolis Journal. 



LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, Publishers 
254 Washington Street, Boston. 



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